Ronald Reagan used to alarm other constituencies by speaking freely about the End Times foreshadowed in the Bible.

The moment of near despair is quite often the moment that precedes courage.

I was precocious enough to watch the news and read the papers, and I can remember October 1956, the simultaneous crisis in Hungary and Suez, very well. And getting a sense that the world was dangerous, a sense that the game was up, that the Empire was over.

Your least favorite virtue, or nominee for the most overrated one? Faith. Closely followed—in view of the overall shortage of time—by patience.

I'm not that keen on the idea of being unconscious.

No moral person would do such a thing unless they thought it was divinely warranted.

The crucial distinction between systems...was no longer ideological. The main political difference was between those who did, and those who did not, believe that the citizen could -- or should -- be the property of the state.