Van Wyck Brooks

“Magnanimous people have no vanity, they have no jealousy, and they feed on the true and the solid wherever they find it. And, what is more, they find it everywhere.”

“People of small caliber are always carping. They are bent on showing their own superiority, their knowledge or prowess or good breeding.”

“There is no stopping the world's tendency to throw off imposed restraints, the religious authority that is based on the ignorance of the many, the political authority that is based on the knowledge of the few.”