To imagine secret societies and conspiracy is a way not to react to the social and political life. Because you say, "We don't know who they are. We cannot react without reasoning." So it is a way to keep people far from the political environment.

With all of its defects, the global market makes war less likely, even between the USA and China.

The more elusive and ambiguous a symbol is, the more it gains significance and power.

but I had also learned that freedom of speech means freedom from rhetoric.

The court jester had the right to say the most outrageous things to the king. Everything was permitted during carnival, even the songs that the Roman legionnaires would sing, calling Julius Caesar "queen", alluding, in a very transparent way, to his real, or presumed, homosexual escapades.

Once you reach your fifties, you have to stop being interested in the present and write only on Elizabethan poets.

Fools are in great demand, especially on social occasions. They embarrass everyone but provide material for conversation. In their positive form, they become diplomats.