The spectator, we might put it, contracts by infection the characteristic disease of the actor, the attenuation of selfhood that results from imperso… - Lionel Trilling

Everything which the economist takes from you in the way of life and humanity, he restores to you in the form of money and wealth.

Some paradox of our natures leads us, when once we have made our fellow men the objects of our enlightened interest, to go on to make them the objects of our pity, then of our wisdom, ultimately of our coercion.

It is one thing, then, to say, "The Bible contains the religion revealed by God," and quite another to say, "Whatever is contained in the Bible is religion, and was revealed by God." If the latter be accepted, metaphor and allegory become literal statements and the errors and absurdities of bibliolatry follow.