“He disliked contradiction, and still more, arguments that were continually skipping from one thing to another, introducing new and disconnected points, so that there was no knowing to which to reply.”

“One great thinker said one thing, another said another, and while the two thoughts are contradicting, the one that backs my argument at the moment is the superior statement.”

“We gaze continually at the world and it grows dull in our perceptions. Yet seen from another's vantage point, as if new, it may still take the breath away.”

“In rural and struggling Lexington, Virginia, Lee's new postwar home, one writer joked darkly dollars were so scarce that they had to be introduced to one another when they met on Main Street.”

“To dislike a writer’s politics is one thing. To dislike him because he forces you to think is another, not necessarily incompatible with the first.”

“What again could this astonishing thing be like which people were so anxious to contradict, that in doing so they did not mind contradicting themselves?”