« The intensity of great poetry and philosophy is abnormal and subversive: it is the enemy of habit, custom, and all stereotypes » (p. 9).
« The poet’s passion cracks convention: the chains of custom drop; the world of our everyday experience is exposed as superficial appearance; the person we had seemed to be and our daily contacts and routines appear as shadows on a screen, without depth; while the poet’s myth reveals reality » (p. 9).
« Philosophy subverts man’s satisfaction with himself, exposes custom as a questionable dream, and offers not so much solutions as a different life » (p. 10).
« The great philosopher is a poet with an intellectual conscience » (p. 34).
« Resignation in the face of the follies of mankind is the price of wisdom. And true wisdom wonders whether wisdom is not folly, too. » (p. 75).