American capitalism has been both overpraised and overindicted. It is neither the Plumed Knight nor the monstrous Robber Baron.

We demand of our political life greater certainty and greater perfection than we demand of our personal life.

A people's speech is the skin of its culture.

To deaden yourself against any hurt is to deaden yourself also against the hurt of others.

The fact is that life has become a sweepstake. Millions of people who have lost the sense of being able to make anything of the collective effort of shaping their economic society, now expect fortune to descend like pie from the sky.

Every mob, in its ignorance and blindness and bewilderment, is a League of Frightened Men that seeks reassurance in collective action.

The politics of surprise leads through the Gates of Astonishment into the Kingdom of Hope.