Finally Irish were accepted into society and became part of the political system, and there were Kennedys, and so on. But the same is true about other waves of immigrants, like the Jews in the 1950s.

Students who acquire large debts putting themselves through school are unlikely to think about changing society. When you trap people in a system of debt, they can't afford the time to think.

The general population doesn't know what's happening, and it doesn't even know that it doesn't know.

That's the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don't work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital.

Jingoism, racism, fear, religious fundamentalism: these are the ways of appealing to people if you're trying to organize a mass base of support for policies that are really intended to crush them.

There's a good reason why nobody studies history, it just teaches you too much.

The world is a very puzzling place. If you're not willing to be puzzled, you just become a replica of someone else's mind.

Democratic societies can't force people. Therefore they have to control what they think.

Nobody should have any illusions. The United States has essentially a one-party system and the ruling party is the business party.

If you want to control a population... give them a God to worship.

A language is not just words. It's a culture, a tradition, a unification of a community, a whole history that creates what a community is. It's all embodied in a language.

Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character.

We must stop concentrating on our differences and look for what we have in common.

You go for the quality of the performance, not the longevity of it.

Don't pretend to be a great master and don't try to show off your strength.

Far from me be the gift of Bacchus--pernicious, inflaming wine, that weakens both body and mind.

It seems that the most important thing about Reagan was his anti-Communism and his reputation as a hawk who saw the Soviet Union as an 'evil empire.'

I was more conservative when I was younger. But I don't think that I've moved left - I think the country has moved right.

I would encourage people to go to NYTIMES.com and read this column and you can see for yourself.

You can't be responsible for the way people respond to you. You're only responsible for yourself.

My fans are very forgiving. So are my wives and my kids.