But what is propaganda, if not the effort to alter the picture to which men respond, to substitute one social pattern for another?

Almost always tradition is nothing but a record and a machine-made imitation of the habits that our ancestors created. The average conservative is a slave to the most incidental and trivial part of his forefathers glory - to the archaic formula which happened to express their genius or the eighteenth-century contrivance by which for a time it was served.

A really good diplomat does not go in for victories, even when he wins them.

Franklin D. Roosevelt is no crusader. He is no tribune of the people. He is no enemy of entrenched privilege. He is a pleasant man who, without any important qualifications for the office, would very much like to be President.

In a place where everybody thinks alike, nobody thinks very much.

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.

Modern men are afraid of the past. It is a record of human achievement, but its other face is human defeat.