Paradoxically, the problems of politics often arise not in the form of a problem of scarcity, but as one of abundance.

Our desires are never wholly transparent, even to ourselves.

Socrates was likewise right that pissing people off is how we first, and maybe best, go about the business of provoking thought.

For every apparent gain, in short, we now observe a balancing danger. This is the world we have created.

Tyranny is abhorrent, freedom benefits all, whereas violence benefits no one for long.

Friendship requires a leap, not of faith but of regard.

Books, like lives, are always unfinished even when they end, for to write is to struggle with contingency, to impose a certain false order upon the endless, and endlessly frustrating, nature of thought.