Mark Van Doren Quotes

The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.

Bring ideas in and entertain them royally, for one of them may be the king.

Nothing in man is more serious than his sense of humor; it is the sign that he wants all the truth.

Respect for the Truth is an acquired taste.

I have always had the greatest respect for students. There is nothing I hate more than condescension"”the attitude that they are inferior to you. I always assume they have good minds.

The job of the poet is to render the world - to see it and report it without loss, without perversion. No poet ever talks about feelings. Only sentimental people do.

To fail to love is not to exist at all.

An unexamined idea, to paraphrase Socrates, is not worth having and a society whose ideas are never explored for possible error may eventually find its foundations insecure.

When it aims to express a love of the world it refuses to conceal the many reasons why the world is hard to love, though we must love it because we have no other, and to fail to love it is not to exist at all.

Wit is the only wall between us and the dark.