Feeling good about yourself is not the same thing as doing good. Good policy is more important than good feelings.

In claiming that prohibition, not the drugs themselves, is the problem, Nadelmann and many others - even policemen - have said that "the war on drugs is lost." But to demand a yes or no answer to the question "Is the war against drugs being won?" is like demanding a yes or no answer to the question "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" Never can an unimaginative and fundamentally stupid metaphor have exerted a more baleful effect upon proper thought.

How many people does each of us know who claim to seek happiness but freely choose paths inevitably leading to misery?

The bravest and most noble are not those who take up arms, but those who are decent despite everything; who improve what it is in their power to improve, but do not imagine themselves to be saviours. In their humble struggle is true heroism.

There is something deeply attractive, at least to quite a lot of people, about squalor, misery, and vice. They are regarded as more authentic, and certainly more exciting, than cleanliness, happiness, and virtue.

Do I grow cleverer with age, or does the world grow more stupid?

Where a reputation for intolerance is more feared than a reputation for vice itself, all manner of evil may be expected to flourish.