The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.

If a society is to preserve stability and a degree of continuity, it must learn how to keep its adolescents from imposing their tastes, values, and fantasies on everyday life.

We can remember minutely and precisely only the things which never really happened to us.

Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for lost faith in ourselves.

...That genius is a rare exception (:) It's not true. Talent and genius have been wasted on enormous scale throughout our history; this is all I know for sure.

The act of self-denial seems to confer on us the right to be harsh and merciless toward others.

Our present addiction to pollsters and forecasters is a symptom of our chronic uncertainty about the future... We watch our experts read the entrails of statistical tables and graphs the way the ancients watched their soothsayers read the entrails of a chicken.