I've been writing a lot about a new form of Russian imperialism. Actually, Russian Orthodox imperialism. It's very little remarked that the cement, the political, ideological cement of the Russian regime now, communism having collapsed and imploded, is increasingly a confessional one.

Only the aspirants for president are fool enough to believe what they read in the newspapers.

I have nowhere claimed nor even implied that unbelief is a guarantee of good conduct or even an indicator of it.

People know when they are being lied to, they know when their rulers are absurd, they know they do not love their chains.

I sympathize afresh with the mighty Voltaire who, when badgered on his deathbed and urged to renounce the devil, murmured that this was no time to be making enemies.

An old joke has an Oxford professor meeting an American former graduate student and asking him what he's working on these days. 'My thesis is on the survival of the class system in the United States.' 'Oh really, that's interesting: one didn't think there was a class system in the United States.' 'Nobody does. That's how it survives.

A Great voice has fallen silent. A great heart has stopped.