In comparison to the French Revolution, the American Revolution has come to seem a parochial and rather dull event. This, despitethe fact that the American Revolution was successful--realizing the purposes of the revolutionaries and establishing a durable political regime--while the French Revolution was a resounding failure, devouring its own children and leading to an imperial despotism, followed by an eventual restoration of the monarchy.

If you believe that no one was ever corrupted by a book, you have also to believe that no one was ever improved by a book.

Anyone who knows anything about journalism knows that reporters are rarely in a position to investigate anything. They lack the authority to subpoena witnesses, to cross-examine, to scrutinize official records. They are lucky to get their phone calls returned.

It was a new kind of class war - the people as citizens versus the politicians and their clients in the public sector.

There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people. There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn't work.

People need religion. It's a vehicle for a moral tradition. A crucial role. Nothing can take its place.

I have observed over the years that the unanticipated consequences of social action are always more important, and usually less agreeable, than the intended consequences.