"“For touching a people who want to forget ugly problems, no politician equals the one who has already forgotten them himself."

Murray Kempton Politics See all quotes by Murray Kempton →

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“If you talk to gangsters long enough, you’ll find out they’re just as bad as respectable people.”

“One does not attend this movie; one enlists in it.”

“The faces in New York remind me of people who had played a game and lost.”

“Great care has gone into the construction of the shadow which declares itself to be Richard Nixon.”

“In baseball, the true class enemy is not the boss, but the fan.”

“Donald Trump dresses his hatred up as though it were a peacock's feathers. In any polity entitled to think itself civilized, persons with regard for their breeding would leave the room politely but definitely whenever Donald Trump entered it.”

Resonant Thoughts

"We are joined today by inspiring entrepreneurs from more than 120 countries and many from across Africa. And all of you embody a spirit that we need to take on some of the biggest challenges that we f…"

— Barack Obama

Politics1961

#time

"I had rather take my chance that some traitors will escape detection than spread abroad a spirit of general suspicion and distrust, which accepts rumor and gossip in place of undismayed and unintimida…"

— Learned Hand

Law1872–1961

#books

"Someone in DC posted a snapshot of a pizza delivery guy on a Pentagon-bound Metro train, toting a stack of pizzas so high he had to use a two-wheeled dolly. Self-proclaimed experts in the comment thre…"

— Neal Stephenson

Literature1959

#books

"Campbell has shown how the learning theory developed in the tight research group surrounding Kenneth Spence was less powerful than the learning theory developed within the much looser group surroundin…"

— Karl E. Weick

Education1936–2026

#power