You tell me your favorite novelists and I'll tell you whom you vote for, or whether you vote at all.

Consistency is a virtue for trains: what we want from a philosopher is insights, whether he comes by them consistently or not.

To state a lie firmly, categorically and with great authority, undeterred by the fact that all concerned know it to be a lie, is one of the principal activities defined by the term practising law.

Dictatorship is a constant lecture instructing you that your feelings, your thoughts and desires are of no account, that you are a nobody and must live as you are told by other people who desire and think for you

The truth is that our race survived ignorance; it is our scientific genius that will do us in.

Powerful men in particular suffer from the delusion that human beings have no memories. I would go so far as to say that the distinguishing trait of powerful men is the psychotic certainty that people forget acts of infamy as easily as their parents birth

Perhaps in a book review it is not out of place to note that the safety of the state depends on cultivating the imagination.