American social arrangements, economic arrangements, the degree of inequality in American life, the relatively small role played by the government in American public life and so forth, compares to exactly the opposite conditions in most of the European societies.

Words can make the illness a subject I can master, and not one that one simply emotes over.

If active or concerned citizens forfeit politics, they thereby abandon their society to its most mediocre and venal public servants

All modern U.S. presidents are perforce politicians, prisoners of their past pronouncements, their party, their constituency, and their colleagues.

The military system of a nation is not an independent section of the social system but an aspect of its totality.

If we have learned nothing else from the 20th century, we should at least have grasped that the more perfect the answer, the more terrifying its consequences. Incremental improvements upon unsatisfactory circumstances are the best that we can hope for, and probably all we should seek.

Reality is a powerful solvent.