Industry is a better horse to ride than genius.

A country survives its legislation. That truth should not comfort the conservative nor depress the radical. For it means that public policy can enlarge its scope and increase its audacity, can try big experiments without trembling too much over the result. This nation could enter upon the most radical experiments and could afford to fail in them.

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

Culture is the name for what people are interested in, their thoughts, their models, the books they read and the speeches they hear, their table-talk, gossip, controversies, historical sense and scientific training, the values they appreciate, the quality of life they admire. All communities have a culture. It is the climate of their civilization.

It is so much easier to talk of poverty than to think of the poor.

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

It is easier to develop great power than it is to know how to use it wisely.