Yet this corporate being, though so insubstantial to our senses, binds, in Burkes words, a man to his country with ties which though light as air, are as strong as links of iron. That is why young men die in battle for their countrys sake and why old men plant trees they will never sit under.

Once you touch the biographies of human beings, the notion that political beliefs are logically determined collapses like a pricked balloon.

When all think alike, then no one is thinking

The genius of a good leader is to leave behind him a situation which common sense, without the grace of genius, can deal with successfully.

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.

Politicians tend to live "in character" and many a public figure has come to imitate the journalism that describes him.

A man cannot be a good doctor and keep telephoning his broker between patients nor a good lawyer with his eye on the ticker.