Learning from experience is a faculty almost never practiced

Strong prejudices in an ill-formed mind are hazardous to government, and when combined with a position of power even more so.

Fateful moments tend to evoke grandeur of speech, especially in French.

Policy is formed by preconceptions, by long implanted biases. When information is relayed to policy-makers, they respond in terms of what is already inside their heads and consequently make policy less to fit the facts than to fit the notions and intentions formed out of the mental baggage that has accumulated in their minds since childhood.

When the gap between ideal and real becomes too wide, the system breaks down.

The better part of valor is to spend it learning to live with differences, however hostile, unless and until we can find another planet.

The writer's object is - or should be - to hold the reader's attention.