If we don't know our own history, we are deemed to live it.

It belongs among the refinements of totalitarian government in our century that they don't permit their opponents to die a great, dramatic martyr's death for their convictions.

To be free in an age like ours, one must be in a position of authority. That in itself would be enough to make me ambitious.

Every organization of men, be it social or political, ultimately relies on man's capacity for making promises and keeping them.

Our tradition of political thought had its definite beginning in the teachings of Plato and Aristotle. I believe it came to a no less definite end in the theories of Karl Marx.

This inability to think created the possibility for many ordinary men to commit evil deeds on a gigantic scale, the like of which had never been seen before. The manifestation of the wind of thought is not knowledge but the ability to tell right from wrong, beautiful from ugly. And I hope that thinking gives people the strength to prevent catastrophes in these rare moments when the chips are down.

Action, as distinguished from fabrication, is never possible in isolation; to be isolated is to be deprived of the capacity to act.