Comedy is the most difficult thing to do. Easily the most difficult.
The historian is a prophet looking backward.
The symmetry and organization of history teaches us that mankind, during its existence and development, genuinely was and became an individual, a person. In this great personality of mankind, God became man.
If one writes or reads novels from the point of view of psychology, it is very inconsistent and petty to want to shy away from even the slowest and most detailed analysis of the most unnatural lusts, gruesome tortures, shocking infamy, and disgusting sensual or spiritual impotence.
A genuinely free and educated man should be able to tune himself, as one tunes a musical instrument, absolutely arbitrarily, at his convenience at any time and to any degree, philosophically or philologically, critically or poetically, historically or rhetorically, in ancient or modern form.
The highest good and solely useful is liberal education.
The few existing writings against Kantian philosophy are the most important documents in the case history of sound common sense.
I don't trust white critics' judgment about most things that deal with black life, particularly when a black person is the creator.
If we carry purism to it's logical conclusion, to do it right {fishing} you'd have to live naked in a cave, hit your trout on the head with rocks, and eat them raw. But, so as not to violate another essential element of the fly-fishing tradition, the rocks would have to be quarried in England and cost $300 each.
Man, alone, has the power to transform his thoughts into physical reality; man, alone, can dream and make his dreams come true.
We cannot understand our humanity just by studying individuals.