We moderns have mastered the seemingly impossible trick of feeling superior to ourselves.
A government not of men but of laws — written by men, interpreted by men, and enforced by men.
The stupid kids turned out to be not quite as stupid as we thought, and the smart kids nowhere near as smart.
There is a level of generality — the airport-book level — on which every thesis is exactly as plausible as its opposite.
We say that the perfect is the enemy of the good when we mean that the adequate is the enemy of the shoddy.
The greater good is distant and speculative: the lesser evil required to achieve it is immediate and certain.
Understanding looks, to others, like forgiveness; and forgiveness, to oneself, like understanding.
No complicated idea has ever had much influence in the world.
It wasn’t funny the first time either.
What you call hypocrisy I call hedging against the possibility that one’s beliefs are in error.