The most educated person in the world now has to admit-- I shall not say confess-- that he or she knows less and less but at least knows less and less about more and more.

You can be a Polish American, or an Arab American, or a Greek American but you can't be English American. Why not?

Jesus, it is true, shows no personal interest in gain, but he does speak of treasure in heaven and even of mansions as an inducement to follow him. Is it not further true that all religions down the ages have shown a keen interest in the amassment of material goods in the real world?

To the dumb question, 'Why me?' the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply, 'Why not?'

To be the father of growing daughters is to understand something of what Yeats evokes with his imperishable phrase 'terrible beauty.' Nothing can make one so happily exhilarated or so frightened: it's a solid lesson in the limitations of self to realize that your heart is running around inside someone else's body. It also makes me quite astonishingly calm at the thought of death: I know whom I would die to protect and I also understand that nobody but a lugubrious serf can possibly wish for a father who never goes away.

The secular argument, or the liberal argument, is to as much as possible remove taboos so things do not become unmentionable; to let some air into the discussion.

The people who tend to raise antiwar slogans will do so generally when it's American or British interests involved.