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

The man who raises new issues has always been distasteful to politicians. He musses up what had been so tidily arranged.

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.

People who are tremendously concerned about their identification, their individuality, their self-expression, or their sense of humor, always seem to be missing the very things they pursue.

We must protect the right of our opponents to speak because we must hear what they have to say.

An alliance is like a chain. It is not made stronger by adding weak links to it. A great power like the United States gains no advantage and it loses prestige by offering, indeed peddling, its alliances to all and sundry. An alliance should be hard diplomatic currency, valuable and hard to get, and not inflationary paper from the mimeograph machine in the State Department.

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.