Christmas is a necessity. There has to be at least one day of the year to remind us that we're here for something else besides ourselves.

With breathtaking rapidity, we are destroying all that was lovely to look at and turning America into a prison house of the spirit. The affluent society, with relentless single-minded energy, is turning our cities, most of suburbia and most of our roadways into the most affluent slum on earth.

Men want power in order to do something. Boys want power in order to be something.

Most problems are caused by solutions.

The bigger the information media, the less courage and freedom they follow. Bigness means weakness.

The five happiest people I have ever met all had this strange little quirk of referring to their jobs as a 'calling.'

It is only people with a sense of personal responsibility who can help others. It is only people with a sense of personal responsibility who can be helped in a lasting way.

Consultant: an ordinary guy more than 50 miles from home.

Wisdom is essential in a president, the appearance of wisdom will do in a candidate.

People, if given the choice between anarchy and dictatorship, will always choose dictatorship because anarchy is the worst dictatorship of all.

Next to power without honor, the most dangerous thing in the world is power without humor.

There are only two kinds of people in the world, suckers and people that can be had. Everyone can be had, but a sucker will always bet you $50 that he can't be had. Maybe magicians are around to remind us we can all be had, so we don't become suckers.

The biggest big business in America is not steel, automobiles, or television. It is the manufacture, refinement and distribution of anxiety.

Words themselves become beings, sentences becomenatural vegetation to be guided by the gardener's hands.

I have never quite grasped the worry about the power of the press. After all, it speaks with a thousand voices, in constant dissonance.