Shakespeare will not make us better and will not make us worse, but he may allow us to overhear ourselves when we talk to ourselves.

To read in the service of any ideology is not to read at all. The mind's dialogue with itself is not primarily a social reality. All that the Western canon can bring one is the proper use of one's own solitude.

Fighting newspaper editors for the last word was a losing proposition.

Officers succumbed to the spirit of conspirators.

He forced himself into good spirits.

If you have a suspicion in your own breast, keep that suspicion in your own breast.