We must care to think about the unthinkable things, because when things become unthinkable, thinking stops and action becomes mindless.
Science has radically changed the conditions of human life on earth. It has expanded our knowledge and our power, but not our capacity to use them with wisdom.
The American public has become so conditioned by crises, by warnings, by words, that there are few, other than the young, who protest against what is happening.
Intolerance of dissent is a well-noted feature of the American national character.
The case for government by elites is irrefutable.
Once imbued with the idea of a mission, a great nation easily assumes that it has the means as well as the duty to do God’s work.
There has been a tendency through the years for reason and moderation to prevail as long as things are going tolerably well or as long as our problems seem clear and finite and manageable.
We have the power to do any damn fool thing we want to do, and we seem to do it about every ten minutes.
The exchange program is the thing that reconciles me to all the difficulties of political life. It’s the only activity that gives me some hope that the human race won’t commit suicide, though I still wouldn’t count on it.
There has been a strong tradition in this country that it is not the function of the military to educate the public on political issues.
Naturepitiless in a pitiless universeis certainly not concerned with the survival of Americans or, for that matter, of any of the two billion people now inhabiting this earth. Hence, our destiny, with the aid of God, remains in our own hands.
In a democracy, dissent is an act of faith.
The junior Senator from Wisconsin, by his reckless charges, has so preyed upon the fears and hatred of uninformed and credulous people that he has started a prairie fire, which neither he nor anyone else may be able to control.
We are trying to remake Vietnamese society, a task which certainly cannot be accomplished by force and which probably cannot be accomplished by any means available to outsiders.
When we violate the law ourselves, whatever short-term advantage may be gained, we are obviously encouraging others to violate the law; we thus encourage disorder and instability and thereby do incalculable damage to our own long-term interests.
Power tends to confuse itself with virtue, and a great nation is peculiarly susceptible to the idea that its power is a sign of God’s favor.
Insofar as it represents a genuine reconciliation of differences, a consensus is a fine thing; insofar as it represents a concealment of differences, it is a miscarriage of democratic procedure.
The cause of our difficulties in southeast Asia is not a deficiency of power but an excess of the wrong kind of power which results in a feeling of impotence when it fails to achieve its desired ends.
The Soviet Union has indeed been our greatest menace, not so much because of what it has done, but because of the excuses it has provided us for our failures.
Education is a slow-moving but powerful force. It may not be fast enough or strong enough to save us from catastrophe, but it is the strongest force available for that purpose and in its proper place, therefore, is not at the periphery, but at the center of international relations.
I think we Americans tend to put too high a price on unanimity, as if there were something dangerous and illegitimate about honest differences of opinion honestly expressed by honest men.