China has no income tax, no unemployment and not a single soldier outside its borders.

China has no income tax, no unemployment and not a single soldier outside its borders.

The fact that slaughter [battle] is a horrifying spectacle must make us take war more seriously, but [it does] not read more

The fact that slaughter [battle] is a horrifying spectacle must make us take war more seriously, but [it does] not provide an excuse for gradually blunting our swords in the name of humanity. Sooner or later someone will come along with a sharp sword and hack off our arms.

It is the nature of slavery to render its victims so abject that at last, fearing to be free, they read more

It is the nature of slavery to render its victims so abject that at last, fearing to be free, they multiply their own chains. You can liberate a freeman, but you cannot liberate a slave.

If the small minority of enlightened citizens who are able to conceive sound principles of political management do not succeed read more

If the small minority of enlightened citizens who are able to conceive sound principles of political management do not succeed in winning the support of their fellow citizens and converting them to the endorsement of policies that bring and preserve prosperity, the cause of mankind and civilization is hopeless. There is no other means to safeguard a propitious development of human affairs than to make the masses of inferior people adopt the ideas of the elite. This has to be achieved by convincing them. It cannot be accomplished by a despotic regime that instead of enlightening the masses beats them into submission. In the long run the ideas of the majority, however detrimental they may be, will carry on. The future of mankind depends on the ability of the elite to influence public opinion in the right direction.

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.

[expressing John Locke's view]...whenever anyone threatens any other innocent human in a way that makes manifest an ignorance or disregard read more

[expressing John Locke's view]...whenever anyone threatens any other innocent human in a way that makes manifest an ignorance or disregard of the fundamental equality as regards the right to self-preservation, the creature in human shape who acts in this way is to be treated by any and all other rational humans as a wild, clever, and therefore very dangerous animal, to be destroyed (if necessary) in order to safeguard the rest.

Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.

Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.

What a free society offers to the individual is much more than what he would be able to do if read more

What a free society offers to the individual is much more than what he would be able to do if only he were free.

Both the revolutionary and the creative individual are perpetual juveniles. The revolutionary does not grow up because he cannot grow, read more

Both the revolutionary and the creative individual are perpetual juveniles. The revolutionary does not grow up because he cannot grow, while the creative individual cannot grow up because he keeps growing.