Modesty is a vastly overrated virtue.

All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.

Much literary criticism comes from people for whom extreme specialization is a cover either for grave cerebral inadequacy or terminal laziness, the latter being a much-cherished aspect of academic freedom.

One of the best ways of avoiding necessary and even urgent tasks is to seem to be busily employed on things that are already done.

Power is not something that can be assumed or discarded at will like underwear.

In the world of minor lunacy the behaviour of both the utterly rational and the totally insane seems equally odd.

I am not quite sure what the advantage is in having a few more dollars to spend if the air is too dirty to breathe, the water too polluted to drink, the commuters are losing out in the struggle to get in and out of the city, the streets are filthy, and the schools so bad that the young perhaps wisely stay away, and the hoodlums roll citizens for some of the dollars they saved in the tax cut.