Anybody can equivocate; ambiguity takes talent.

There are men who believe in a government of laws, not men; but they are not the men who govern.

Revenge of the Nerds: A History of the Modern West

School selects partly for intelligence but mostly for compliance.

Escobar's Hippos would be a good name for a band

We notice not what is plentiful but what is noticeable.

To imagine oneself rejected on the basis of race, sex, or creed must be a great comfort, pushing away, as it does, the idea of more personal rejection.

If you want to know what most people's inner lives are like, imagine the Old Testament, but starring you instead of the Jews.

One obtains a reputation for prophecy by predicting what is already happening that no one else has noticed.

About a century ago "poet" became a polite term for half-wit, and then it was "artist", and it will be "scientist" sooner than you think.

Thought-criminals, like regular ones, would escape punishment more often if they could manage not to boast of their exploits.

Gods and churches don't make religions; they contain them.

An unexpected consequence of social media has been to make public begging respectable.

Parade, n. Mob in waiting.

In any sufficiently advanced civilization, the Top will use the Bottom to bludgeon the Middle.

The Victorians used to tell us fiction rots the mind when in fact it rots the soul.

There is a happiness in widely-shared enforced misery that goes a long way toward explaining nostalgia for Stalinism, or broadcast television.

Most things are too big, and the bigger they get the worse they are.

In many games, like natural selection, it's not whether you win or lose but how long you keep playing.