As long as your ideas of what’s possible are limited by what’s actual, no other idea has a chance.

One great function of the arts is to keep ideals alive in a culture that does not yet realize them.

In the most general terms, the Enlightenment goes back to Plato’s belief that truth and beauty and goodness are connected; that truth and beauty, disseminated widely, will sooner or later lead to goodness. (While we’re making at effort at truth and goodness, beauty reminds us what we’re hold out for.)