“In an abstract but real sense, Marxism arose through the breakdown first of religion and then of ‘reason’ as single sources of authority.”

To Marx the claim of the theory of ideology is that all doctrine is a derivative of social circumstance.

BOREDOM with established truths is a great enemy of free men.

There is no great danger to politics in the desire for certainty at any price.

Where government is impossible, politics is impossible.

Politics deserves much praise. Politics is a preoccupation of free men, and its existence is a test of freedom. The praise of free men is worth having, for it is the only praise which is free from either servility or condescension.

Politics are, as it were, the market place and the price mechanism of all social demands – though there is no guarantee that a just price will be struck; and there is nothing spontaneous about politics- it depends on deliberate and continuous activity.

Certainly if the fundamental problem of society is that demands are infinite and resources are always limited, politics, not economics is the master science.

Totalitarianism surpasses autocracy.

Free men stick their necks out.

Politics has rough manners, but it is a very useful thing.

If, of course, one builds into the concept of an ‘individual’ all that Professor Hayek does in his Road To Serfdom.

The unique character of political activity lies, quite literally, in its publicity.

What matters in Politics is what men actually do – sincerity is no excuse for acting unpolitically, and insincerity may be channelled by politics into good results.

One of the symptoms of a declining social order is that its members have to give most of their time to politics, rather than to the real tasks of economic production, in an attempt to patch up the cracks already appearing from the ‘inner contradictions’ of such a system.

The political process is not tied to any particular doctrine. Genuine political doctrines, rather, are the attempt to find particular and workable solutions to this perpetual and shifty problem of conciliation.

Factory workers are not working for capitalism, they are working for a living wage.

Our first half is about how to make a living, and our second half has the promise of being about how to make a life.

A censure would put an indelible scar on the president’s place in history, .. Monica Lewinsky is not Watergate. Let he who has no sin in this chamber cast the first stone.

All artists are protected by copyright… and we should be the first to respect copyright.

You know, as you get older, the first thing you lose is memory. It seems to be happening with me.

Ask not first what the system does; ask what it does it to!

I started out as a very traditional actor. The first thing I ever did in terms of performance was singing.

A motto I’ve adopted is, if at first you don’t succeed, hide all evidence that you ever tried.

Most of the time I am sunk in thought, but at some point on each walk there comes a moment when I look up and notice, with a kind of first-time astonishment.