To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself.

To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself.

I think most historians will agree that the part played by impulses of selfish, individual aggression in the holocausts of read more

I think most historians will agree that the part played by impulses of selfish, individual aggression in the holocausts of history was small; first and foremost, the slaughter was meant as an offering to the gods, to king and country, or the future happiness of mankind. The crimes of Caligula shrink to insignificance compared to the havoc wrought by Torquemada. The number of victims of robbers, highwaymen, rapists, gangsters and other criminals at any period of history is negligible compared to the massive numbers of those cheerfully slain in the name of the true religion, just policy, or correct ideology.

All government, in its essence, is organized exploitation, and in virtually all of its existing forms it is the implacable read more

All government, in its essence, is organized exploitation, and in virtually all of its existing forms it is the implacable enemy of every industrious and well-disposed man.

The first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that the end justifies the means.

The first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that the end justifies the means.

Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned.

Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned.

All revolutions...have been led by persons who knew oppression well, but not on their own skin.

All revolutions...have been led by persons who knew oppression well, but not on their own skin.

The price of power is responsibility for the public good.

The price of power is responsibility for the public good.

I'm proud that I'm a politician. A politician is a man who understands government, and it takes a politician to read more

I'm proud that I'm a politician. A politician is a man who understands government, and it takes a politician to run a government. A statesman is a politician who's been dead 10 or 15 years.

So far as business and money are concerned, a country gains nothing by a successful war, even though that war read more

So far as business and money are concerned, a country gains nothing by a successful war, even though that war involves the acquisition of immense new provinces.