Stephen Vizinczey

When you close your eyes to tragedy, you close your eyes to greatness.

Is it possible that I am not alone in believing that in the dispute between Galileo and the Church, the Church was right and the centre of man's universe is the earth?

The war against Vietnam is only the ghastliest manifestation of what I'd call imperial provincialism, which afflicts America's whole culture—aware only of its own history, insensible to everything which isn't part of the local atmosphere.

The truth is that our race survived ignorance; it is our scientific genius that will do us in.

Strange as it seems, no amount of learning can cure stupidity, and higher education positively fortifies it.

Strange as it may seem, no amount of learning can cure stupidity, and formal education positively fortifies it.

We now have a whole culture based on the assumption that people know nothing and so anything can be said to them.

The only virtue a character needs to possess between hardcovers, even if he bears a real person's name, is vitality: if he comes to life in our imaginations, he passes the test.