In a dying civilization, political prestige is the reward not of the shrewdest diagnostician, but of the man with the best bedside manner.

A person who searched rooms, brandished pistols, dangled promises of half a million franc fees for nameless services and then wrote instructions to Polish spies might reasonably be regarded with suspicion. But suspicion of what?

Reality is always so obstructive.

Good' did not triumph. 'Evil' did not triumph. The two resolved, destroyed each other and created new 'evils', new 'goods' which slew each other in their turn.

In a dying civilization, political prestige is the reward not of the shrewdest diagnostician, but of the man with the best bedside manner.

International business may conduct its operations with scraps of paper, but the ink it uses is human blood.

Never tell a lie when you can bullshit your way through it