The SAT is not perfect. We all know smart, knowledgeable people who do badly on standardized tests. But neither is it useless. SAT scores do measure both specific knowledge and valuable thinking skills.

At the simplest level, only people who know they do not know everything will be curious enough to find things out.

European nations began World War I with a glamorous vision of war, only to be psychologically shattered by the realities of the trenches. The experience changed the way people referred to the glamour of battle; they treated it no longer as a positive quality but as a dangerous illusion.

Progress through trial and error depends not only on making trials, but on recognizing errors.

The glamour of air travel - its aspirational meaning in the public imagination - disappeared before its luxury did, dissipating as flying gradually became commonplace.

Aesthetics has become too important to be left to the aesthetes. To succeed, hard-nosed engineers, real estate developers, and MBAs must take aesthetic communication, and aesthetic pleasure, seriously. We, their customers, demand it.

Medicare is immune from the competitive pressures that force private insurers to pay attention to what patients and doctors want.