“The twentieth century is hardly behind us but already its quarrels and its ideals, its hopes and its fears are slipping into obscurity.”
英语
“二十世纪刚刚过去，但它的纷争与理想、希望与恐惧已在褪色。冷战，那场伟大的意识形态分歧，对大多数年轻人来说已如三十年战争般遥远。”
“If we have learned nothing else from the twentieth century, we should at least have grasped that the more perfect the answer, the more terrifying its consequences.”
英语
“如果我们从二十世纪什么都没学到的话，至少应该领悟到：答案越完美，其后果就越可怕。”
“We have entered an age of insecurity — economic insecurity, physical insecurity, political insecurity.”
英语
“我们已进入一个不安全的时代——经济的不安全、人身的不安全、政治的不安全。我们在很大程度上对此浑然不觉这一事实，并不能给我们多少安慰。”
“A society of uncertain, insecure, and anxious individuals — that is what awaits us when the welfare state is dismantled.”
英语
“一个充满不确定、不安全和焦虑的个体的社会——这就是当福利国家被拆除后等待我们的。它不会是自由结社的个人组成的共同体，而是一群原子化的、互相猜疑的孤独者。”
“In the United States today, the weights are so heavy on the scales of justice that we are in serious risk of forfeiting our national myths.”
英语
“在今天的美国，正义天平上的砝码如此沉重，以至于我们有丧失国家神话的严重风险。"美国式生活方式"对除了顶层百分之二十的持有财富者之外的所有人来说，都是一种幻觉。”
“Why do we experience such difficulty even imagining a different sort of society? Why is it beyond us to conceive of a different set of arrangements to our common advantage?”
英语
“为什么我们连想象一种不同的社会都如此困难？为什么构想一套对我们共同有利的不同制度安排，竟超出了我们的能力？”
“Social democracy does not represent an ideal future; it does not even represent the ideal past. But among the options available to us in the present, it is better than anything else to hand.”
英语
“社会民主并不代表一个理想的未来；它甚至不代表理想的过去。但在我们当前可用的选项中，它优于其他任何现成的选择。”