Wars are times of intense technological transformation, because societies invest - sometimes with extensive borrowing - when and where matters of life and death are at stake.

Conventional analysis suffers from a profound failure of imagination. It imagines passing clouds to be permanent and is blind to powerful, long-term shifts taking place in full view of the world.

I think there are worse things than war. For example, injustice.

Anger does not make history. Power does. And power may be supplemented by anger, but it derives from more fundamental realities; geography, demographics, technology, and culture.

What is American strategy first of all? So American strategy is to command the seas, right? The foundation of our power is sea control. Nobody can invade us, but we can invade them.

Well the most likely emerging countries are Japan, Turkey, and Poland. So I would say Eastern Europe, the Middle East and a maritime war by Japan with the United States enjoying its own pleasures.

A century is about events. A decade is about people.

Idealism is frequently another word for self-righteousness, a disease that can only be corrected by a profound understanding power in its complete sense.

The tragedy of the human condition is that the thing that makes us most human - community - originates in the inhumanity of war.

The poets think about war more than the social scientists.

The Chinese have a long history of slaughtering each other without bothering their neighbors.

At home in Ireland, there's a habit of avoidance, an ironical attitude towards the authority figure.

My biggest fear in life is to be forgotten.

In love there is no because.

I'm not a political person, and their ambitions are not mine. They want power. I don't want power.

A good mother is protective but not over-protective. She's patient, she's affectionate, she's playful, but above all she is supportive.

Men are competent in groups that mimic the playground, incompetent in groups that mimic the family

The journey of life - we all go through it: You have love, you lose love, you find new love. To have love again is a beautiful thing.

To fall in love with yourself is the first secret to happiness.

Keep your intelligence white hot and your grief glistening“ so your life will stay fresh.