Never in the history of the world have so many people been so rich; never in the history of the world have so many of those same people felt themselves so poor.

Construed as a means instead of an end, history is the weapon with which we defend the future against the past.

The American oligarchy increasingly has less in common with the American people than it does with the equivalent oligarchies in Germany or Mexico or Japan.

People may expect too much of journalism. Not only do they expect it to be entertaining, they expect it to be true.

Never in the history of the world have so many people been so rich; never in the history of the world have so many of those same people felt themselves so poor.

A certain kind of rich man afflicted with the symptoms of moral dandyism sooner or later comes to the conclusion that it isn't enough merely to make money. He feels obliged to hold views, to espouse causes and elect Presidents, to explain to a trembling world how and why the world went wrong.

It is no accident that banks resemble temples, preferably Greek, and that the supplicants who come to perform the rites of deposit and withdrawal instinctively lower their voices into the registers of awe. Even the most junior tellers acquire within weeks of their employment the officiousness of hierophants tending an eternal flame.