Wooden-headedness, the source of self-deception, is a factor that plays a remarkably large role in government. It consists in assessing a situation in terms of preconceived fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting any contrary signs. It is acting according to wish while not allowing oneself to be deflected by the facts.

The reality of a question is inevitably more complicated than we would like to suppose.

Completeness is rare in history.

satire is a wrapping of exaggeration around a core of reality.

If I had taken a doctoral degree, it would have stifled any writing capacity.

Nothing so comforts the military mind as the maxim of a great but dead general.

Diplomacy means all the wicked devices of the Old World, spheres of influence, balances of power, secret treaties, triple alliances, and, during the interim period, appeasement of Fascism.