The bigger the information media, the less courage and freedom they follow. Bigness means weakness.

It is only people with a sense of personal responsibility who can help others. It is only people with a sense of personal responsibility who can be helped in a lasting way.

With breathtaking rapidity, we are destroying all that was lovely to look at and turning America into a prison house of the spirit. The affluent society, with relentless single-minded energy, is turning our cities, most of suburbia and most of our roadways into the most affluent slum on earth.

For children, Christmas is anticipation. For adults, Christmas is memory.

Men want power in order to do something. Boys want power in order to be something.

It is perfectly clear that people, given no alternative, will choose tyranny over anarchy, because anarchy is the worst tyranny of all... The special nature of liberties is that they can be defended only as long as we still have them. So the very first signs of their erosion must be resisted, whether the issue be domestic surveillance by the Army, so-called preventive detention, or the freedom of corporate television, or that of a campus newspaper.

The best way to get thrown out of the columnists' club is to be uncertain about anything whatsoever on this earth.