Quote of the Day (Mark Edmundson, on Heroes of ‘Serious Thought’)

“Even early on, as they enter the first phase of their lives as thinkers, they’ll have one of the greatest satisfactions a human being can have: They won’t lie. They’ll follow Socrates, and they’ll look out at the world, and with whatever mix of irony and sweetness and exasperation, they will describe it as it is to them. When others trim and sidestep, they will have the satisfaction of voicing honest perceptions.” —Mark Edmundson, on heroes of “serious thought,” in Self and Soul: A Defense of Ideals (2015)