Frantic orthodoxy is never rooted in faith but in doubt. It is when we are unsure that we are doubly sure.

The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world.

The prophet himself stands under the judgment which he preaches. If he does not know that, he is a false prophet.

We take, and must continue to take, morally hazardous actions to preserve our civilization. We must exercise our power. But we ought neither to believe that a nation is capable of perfect disinterestedness in its exercise, nor become complacent about a particular degree of interest and passion which corrupt the justice by which the exercise of power is legitimatized.

To the end of history, social orders will probably destroy themselves in an effort to prove they are indestructible.

...(I)ndividual selfhood is expressed in the self's capacity for self-transcendence and not in its rational capacity for conceptual and analytic procedures.

There is no cure for the pride of a virtuous nation but pure religion.