“If we choose, we can live in a world of comforting illusion.”

There’s never been anything like the so-called Vietnam Syndrome: it’s mostly a fabrication.

The European Central Bank has only the first. It has no commitment to keep employment up.

It followed international law and treaty obligations. It collected evidence, brought the evidence to the highest existing tribunal, the International Court of Justice, and received a verdict – which, of course, the U.S. dismissed with contempt.

I don’t think that experience is a very useful or convincing attribute for a sensible foreign policy. Henry Kissinger had a lot of experience.

In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than just ideals to be valued – they may be essential to survival.

Now that’s so deep in history that there’s no point even bringing it up, but it did once exist.

Libertarian socialism is properly to be regarded as the inheritor of the liberal ideals of the Enlightenment.

NATO was constructed on the – with the reason, whether one believes it or not, that it was going to defend Western Europe from Russian assault.

The polls show that concern over inequality among the general public rose pretty sharply after the Occupy movement started, very probably as a consequence. And there are other policy issues that came to the fore, which are significant.

It’s a trap for the rest of your life because the laws are designed so that you can’t get out of it. If a business, say, gets in too much debt, it can declare bankruptcy, but individuals can almost never be relieved of student debt through bankruptcy.

If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged.

The Bible is one of the most genocidal books in history.

I don’t join the New Atheists. So, for example, I wouldn’t have the arrogance to lecture some mother who hopes to see her dying child in Heaven – that’s none of my business, ultimately. I won’t lecture her on the philosophy of science.

A war with Pakistan would be an utter disaster.

Remember, weapons of mass destruction don’t mean missiles.

In America, the professor talks to the mechanic. They are in the same category.