We must abandon the notion that the people govern. Instead, we must adopt the theory that, by their occasional mobilisations as a majority, people support or oppose the individuals who actually govern.

We are quite rich enough to defend ourselves, whatever the cost. We must now learn that we are quite rich enough to educate ourselves as we need to be educated.

Only the very rarest of princes can endure even a little criticism, and few of them can put up with even a pause in the adulation.

Ideals are an imaginative understanding of that which is desirable in that which is possible.

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.

When philosophers try to be politicians they generally cease to be philosophers.

The writers who have nothing to say, are the ones you can buy, the others have too high a price.