To this day we seem to act in the world as though we know what's right for everybody.

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

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.

What makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?

Action should be founded on contemplation, and those of us who act don't put enough time, don't give enough emphasis, to contemplation.

We see what we want to believe.