Seeking the invisible through the imagery of the visible, the Americans never can get quite all the way to the end of the American dream.

The more prosperous and settled a nation, the more readily it tends to think of war as a regrettable accident; to nations less fortunate the chance of war presents itself as a possible bountiful friend.

The supply of government exceeds demand.

The future turns out to be something that you make instead of find. It isn't waiting for your arrival, either with an arrest warrant or a band, nor is it any further away than the next sentence, the next best guess, the next sketch for the painting of a life portrait that might become a masterpiece. The future is an empty canvas or a blank sheet of paper, and if you have the courage of your own thought and your own observation, you can make of it what you will.

Most of the ladies and gentlemen who mourn the passing of the nation's leaders wouldn't know a leader if they saw one. If they had the bad luck to come across a leader, they would find out that he might demand something from them, and this impertinence would put an abrupt and indignant end to their wish for his return.

His administration apparently means to define itself as a television program instead of a government...I don't know if it can please both its sponsors and its intended audience.

The American press is, and always has been, a booster press, its editorial pages characteristically advancing the same arguments as the paid advertising copy.