The history of this country was made largely by people who wanted to be left alone. Those who could not thrive when left to themselves never felt at ease in America.

Nonconformists travel as a rule in bunches. You rarely find a nonconformist who goes it alone. And woe to him inside a nonconformist clique who does not confor…

We take for granted the need to escape the self. Yet the self can also be a refuge. In totalitarian countries the great hunger is for private life. Absorption …

It is a talent of the weak to persuade themselves that they suffer for something when they suffer from something; that they are showing the way when they are r…

I returned to the Holiday Inn - where they have a swimming pool and air-conditioned rooms - to consider the paradox of a nation that has given so much to those…

There will always be some people who think for themselves, even among the self-appointed guardians of the great mass who, after having thrown off the yoke of i…

Japan gets the most of ordinary people by organizing them to adapt and succeed. America, by getting out of their way so that they can adjust individually, allo…