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The two things he most valued, which is to say liberty and equality, were not natural allies.

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As he once wrote of Kipling, his own enduring influence can be measured by a number of terms and phrases—doublethink, thought police, 'Some animals ar...more

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We know of no spectacle more ridiculous—or more contemptible—than that of the religious reactionaries who dare to re-write the history of our republic...more

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Those of us who write and study history are accustomed to its approximations and ambiguities. This is why we do not take literally the tenth-hand repo...more

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The people who must never have power are the humorless. To impossible certainties of rectitude they ally tedium and uniformity.

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The little boats cannot make much difference to the welfare of Gaza either way, since the materials being shipped are in such negligible quantity. The...more

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Religion is part of the human make-up. It's also part of our cultural and intellectual history. Religion was our first attempt at literature, the text...more

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If you say you're a unifier, you expect and usually get applause. I'm a divider. Politics is division by definition, if there was no disagreement ther...more

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Indifferent to truth, willing to use police-state tactics and vulgar libels against inconvenient witnesses, hopeless on health care, and flippant and ...more

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So this is where all the vapid talk about the 'soul' of the universe is actually headed. Once the hard-won principles of reason and science have been ...more

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What if, I never tire of asking, we said 'Secret Council' instead of the archaic and therefore cuddly 'Privy Council'?

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At least two important conservative thinkers, Ayn Rand and Leo Strauss, were unbelievers or nonbelievers and in any case contemptuous of Christianity....more

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Orwell's short and intense life has for years borne witness to some of those verities of which we were already aware. Parties and churches and states ...more

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Don't write in to ask whether I would prefer Gingrich to Clinton. Ask, rather, whether Clinton prefers Gingrich to you. Go triangulate yourself.

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Those of us who follow politics seriously rather than view it as a game show do not look at Hillary Clinton and simply think 'first woman president.' ...more