Discontent is likely to be highest when misery is bearable; when conditions have so improved that an ideal state seems read more

Discontent is likely to be highest when misery is bearable; when conditions have so improved that an ideal state seems almost within reach. A grievance is most poignant when almost redressed. De Tocqueville in his researches into the state of society in France before the revolution was struck by the discovery that "in no one of the periods which have followed the Revolution of 1789 has the national prosperity of France augmented more rapidly than it did in the twenty years preceding that event." He is forced to conclude that "the French found their position the more intolerable the better it became.

The world of politics is always twenty years behind the world of thought.

The world of politics is always twenty years behind the world of thought.

Don't one of you fire until you see the whites of their eyes."N.B.: A lesser-known version of this quotation was read more

Don't one of you fire until you see the whites of their eyes."N.B.: A lesser-known version of this quotation was supposedly said by Frederick the Great at Prague in 1757: "By push of bayonets, no firing till you see the whites of their eyes. - Battle of Bunker Hill, 1775.

Absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the read more

Absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others the submissiveness of sheep.

The tendency of democracies is, in all things, to mediocrity.

The tendency of democracies is, in all things, to mediocrity.

As President Nixon says, presidents can do almost anything, and President Nixon has done many things that nobody would have read more

As President Nixon says, presidents can do almost anything, and President Nixon has done many things that nobody would have thought of doing.

...one of the most notable characteristics of any Age of Conflict is the effort to achieve economic expansion by political read more

...one of the most notable characteristics of any Age of Conflict is the effort to achieve economic expansion by political rather than by economic means.

It is a dangerous and idle dream to think that the state can become rule by philosophers turned kings or read more

It is a dangerous and idle dream to think that the state can become rule by philosophers turned kings or scientists turned commissars. For if philosophers become kings or scientists commissars, they become politicians, and the powers given to the state are powers given to men who are rulers of states, men subject to all the limitations and temptations of their dangerous craft. Unless this is borne in mind, there will be a dangerous optimistic tendency to sweep aside doubts and fears as irrelevant, since, in the state that the projectors have in mind, power will be exercised by men of a wisdom and degree of moral virtue that we have not yet seen. It won't. It will be exercised by men who will be men first and rulers next and scientists and saints long after.

Show me the country that has no strikes and I'll show you the country in which there is no liberty.

Show me the country that has no strikes and I'll show you the country in which there is no liberty.