The attraction of power we take for granted in politics.. But in economics...the thrust...is for pecuniary return, for money. And I have always felt that denies in the economic world a very large part of the motivation.

Perhaps never before or since have so many people taken the measure of economic prospects and found them so favorable as in the two days following the Thursday [24th October 1929] disaster.

For the sake of The Progressive, I will say that [Robert] La Follette was relevant, but he was the last.

And there was a deeper, less visible effect of the Truman loyalty program. Seeing its consequences for certain individuals and fearing its intrusion on their own lives, many in the government sought protection by strongly asserting their anti-Communism. In the public action that ensued, policy was based not on reality but, instinctively or deliberately, on personal caution...Those who urged a militant and sometimes military anti-Communism were considered sound, trustworthy and personally safe; those who questioned such a course were politically unsafe, possible even slightly disloyal.

Superficial observers have long criticized the United States for making a fetish of youth. This is unfair. Uniquely among modern organs of public and private administration, its national legislature rewards senility.

I am worried about our tendency to over invest in things and under invest in people.

It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled seas of thought.