A man cannot sleep in his cradle: whatever is useful must in the nature of life become useless.

At the core of every moral code there is a picture of human nature, a map of the universe, and a version of history. To human nature (of the sort conceived), in a universe (of the kind imagined), after a history (so understood), the rules of the code apply.

Men who are orthodox when they are young are in danger of being middle-aged all their lives.

The press does not tell us what to think, it tells us what to think about.

The first principle of a civilized state is that power is legitimate only when it is under contract.

The justification of majority rule in politics is not to be found in its ethical superiority.

Successful democratic politicians are insecure and intimidated men. They advance politically only as they placate, appease, bribe, seduce, bamboozle, or otherwise manage to manipulate the demanding and threatening elements in their constituencies. The decisive consideration is not whether the proposition is good but whether it is popular -- not whether it will work well and prove itself but whether the active talking constituents like it immediately. Politicians rationalize this servitude by saying that in a democracy public men are the servants of the people.