Top Ten List of Schallian Points found in The Unseriousness of Human Affairs:
10. Higher education is today largely a matter of private enterprise, good fortune, and reading things that few assign or praise.
9. We must first ask to see before we shall see.
8. We must philosophize with our whole soul.
7. At any moment we can be, and often are, faced with a choice that involves ultimate consequences because of the exalted status of each person we meet.
6. The experiences of watching high level sporting events might cause the viewer to see how something is good and exists for its own sake, and if he sees this, he can understand something about God.
5. The two most significant words in the English language are nearly homophonic–to “wonder” and to “wander.”
4. No one has time in one lifetime to study all the great thinkers, but we shouldn't despair. Many paths lead from something to everything.
3. We are homines risibiles, the beings who laugh. The ability to laugh is a sign of metaphysical intelligence because laughter results from our ability to see relationships and this ability is the first requirement of the metaphysician.
2. In Greek mythology, after the gods created the world, they noticed that there was no one to praise what was created–so they sent the muses and they inspired song, poetry, dance, and art.
1. We can do nothing for God. We are ultimately “useless,” but this is the best thing about us because we can, in good conscience, spend our lives in “useless” activities, like philosophizing, singing, sacrificing and dancing.