The cheap but simple human emotion of envy is the driving force of all socialism, of all anti-capitalist philosophy. It is the mark of the intellectual.
The man who hates war more than he hates the Nazis is a wicked man.
The great presidents never forget the principle of the republic and seek to preserve and enhance them – in the long run– without undermining the needs of the moment. Bad presidents simply do what is expedient, heedless of principles. But the worst presidents are those who adhere to the principles regardless of what the fortunes of the moment demand.
The kind of president we need has little to do with ideology and more to do with a willingness to wield power to moral ends.
When I went to war, I did not go making geopolitical calculations. I went to war with a lust.
When you're young and going to war, it's a genuinely exciting moment. You are going to risk yourself. On the battlefield, you are suddenly free. You realize: I'm here, I'm in it. Exaltation. Suddenly you're hit by another extraordinary feeling: my God, I can be killed. And: will I embarrass myself? It's like you're in a kaleidoscope and all of these extraordinary feelings are zipping by.
I cannot understand how something as ubiquitous as war can simply be dismissed as pathological. It is not clear to me that it is an unspeakable evil. If it is, I need proof of it.
Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book.
I think America, really, is over.
Dogs believe they are human. Cats believe they are God.
It isn't about love," Vee said. "It's about fun.