There is no more important task in a democracy than resolving the differences among people and finding a course of action that will be supported by a sufficient number to permit the nation to achieve a better life for all.

Neither conscience nor sanity itself suggests that the United States is, should or could be the global gendarme.

The indefinite combination of human fallibility and nuclear weapons will lead to the destruction of nations.

All the evidence of history suggests that man is indeed a rational animal, but with a near infinite capacity for folly. . . . He draws blueprints for Utopia, but never quite gets it built. In the end he plugs away obstinately with the only building material really ever at hand--his own part comic, part tragic, part cussed, but part glorious nature.

Elimination of nuclear weapons, so naive, so simplistic, and so idealistic as to be quixotic? Some may think so. But as human beings, citizens of nations with power to influence events in the world, can we be at peace with ourselves if we strive for less? I think not.

General, you don't have a war plan! All you have is a kind of horrible spasm!

Poor planning or poor execution of plans is simply to let some force other than reason shape reality.