Political principles are too fickle to sustain a lasting national community.

Evidence

Political principles are a fickle base on which to build a lasting community. In a multicivilizational world where culture counts, the United States could be simply the last anomalous holdover from a fading Western world where ideology counted. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 849

Categorization

• APHORISMS: ‘Political principles are a fickle base on which to build a lasting community’ reads as durable, quotable wisdom beyond the chapter.