William Pfaff

"The achievement of nationhood is a product not only of time and circumstance but usually of war and suffering as well."

"We Americans really seem to be the only truly non-socialist economy on earth."

"The problems of elites is an old one for which Americans have found no solid answer."

"The center holds; passion falls away. That is what happened ideologically in Western Europe over recent years."

"These choices by small countries are vital for them, but may be more momentous than commonly understood for others as well, including the major powers, who presumptuously believe they are in control of events."

"For four hundred years European civilization has dominated the world - for better or for worse. It is convenient, and flattering, for Americans to assume that this is all over; but it very rash to do so."

"But Americans are different from everyone else in the world - except the Canadians, and Americans are more different from the Canadians than they often think."

"Americas problem is how to free itself from the grip of its exhausted ideas."

"Europeans believe in democracy - or, at least, in republican government - but they have considered the alternatives, and continue to do so, and that scandalizes Americans."

"Foreign policy deals across time as well as space."

"The moral spectacle of capitalism still offends, as does American capitalisms implacable insistence that the market determine value even in the political, intellectual, and artistic spheres."

"The truth is that history constantly presents new problems in the guise of old."