A curious reversal in the locus of moral concern has taken place: people feel responsible for everything except for what they do.

When every benefit received is a right, there is no place for good manners, let alone for gratitude.

Where a reputation for intolerance is more feared than a reputation for vice itself, all manner of evil may be expected to flourish.

Feeling good about yourself is not the same thing as doing good. Good policy is more important than good feelings.

If the history of the 20th Century proved anything, it proved that however bad things were, human ingenuity could usually find a way to make them worse.

Equality of Ugliness: If we can't all live in a beautiful place we must all live in an ugly place.

There is nothing that an intellectual less likes to change than his mind, or a politician his policy.

Do I grow cleverer with age, or does the world grow more stupid?

To regret religion is to regret Western civilization.

The aim of untold millions is to be free to do exactly as they choose and for someone else to pay when things go wrong.

It is only by having desire thwarted, and thereby learning to control it — in other words, by becoming civilized — that men become fully human.

It was different than all the rest because I say it was. I felt it was.

NEVER COUNT A SACRIFICE AS A COST

On the phone, it's about as intimate as it can get. The person's right in your ear. You got to be careful on the phone. You can leave yourself wide open

To me Art (poetry) is a continuous and continuing process and that when a man fails to write good poetry he fails to live fully or well.

The worse a woman feels, the better should she look.

I'm a gentleman, if nothing else. It's taken me years to become one, but finally I have a sense of propriety.

Just because you're perfectionist doesn't mean you're perfect.

Accept what you are able to do and what you are not able to do.

We have everything we need, in fact, except the most important thing of all — time to think and the habit of thought.

The notion of American exceptionalism is effective in part because there is little on the face of it that is offensive.