Unlike memory, which confirms and reinforces itself, history contributes to the disenchantment of the world.

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

I know exactly how and where I am going to die. The only question is when.

If words fall into disrepair, what will substitute? They are all we have

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.

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

My generation those who were students in the late 60s was always, in the words of the Who, talking about our generation. That's what we thought of ourselves, as the most important thing since sliced bread. And the "we" that we meant was really the Western Europeans and American generation. And as I think back I suppose I have a sense of guilt on behalf of my generation, a sense that we were terribly provincial and didn't understand the really important stuff that was going on in Eastern Europe.