The real accomplishment of modern science and technology consists in taking ordinary men, informing them narrowly and deeply and then, through appropriate organization, arranging to have their knowledge combined with that of other specialized but equally ordinary men. This dispenses with the need for genius. The resulting performance, though less inspiring, is far more predictable.

The oldest [John Kenneth] Galbraith rule is that when you hear that a new era has dawned, you should take cover.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt and J.F Kennedy were Presidents in very different times.

Only foolish people are completely secure.

Faced with having to change our views or prove that there is no need to do so, most of us immediately get busy on the proof.

Money is what fueled the industrial society. But in the informational society, the fuel, the power, is knowledge. One has now come to see a new class structure divided by those who have information and those who must function out of ignorance. This new class has its power not from money, not from land, but from knowledge.

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.