Honor does not actually exist in nature. Taste and discretion are the closest observable approximations.

Future generations will look at our medicine cabinets and see science compromised by something more dismal than dogma or ignorance: profit.

Judge a man by the companies he buys and sells, not by the companies he keeps.

The real tragedy of the poor, as Oscar Wilde once pointed out, is that they can afford nothing but self-denial. Well, that and over-sized car speakers and fast-food and, on occasion, economy-class plane tickets.

It is tempting to place one's faith in the rich. Even the poor, nowadays, do so. This is understandable. For in a market society where the acquisition of wealth is the only consistently respected value, the rich provide an edifying example. And the poor have little opportunity to learn otherwise.

Watch closely the big battle scene in one of those old Hollywood epics about the Roman empire and you will notice a certain number of bit actors looking around as if they are not quite sure what exactly it is they are supposed to be doing. It is very often the subtlest detail of historical accuracy.

In a closed society, the individual may be denied his full allotment of freedom and liberty. He is spared, however, a certain amount of gratuitous rhetoric on the subject.