I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone let him be where he will.

To own the dominant or only newspaper in a mid-sized American city was for many decades a kind of license to print money. In the Internet age however no one has figured out how to rescue the newspaper in the United States or abroad.

Here's a proposal offered only partly in jest: no resident of the United States whether born here or abroad should get to be a citizen until age 18 at which time each such resident has to take a test.