If school results were the key to power, girls would be running the world.

If school results were the key to power, girls would be running the world.

The fact is that up to now a free society has not been good for the intellectual. It has neither read more

The fact is that up to now a free society has not been good for the intellectual. It has neither accorded him a superior status to sustain his confidence nor made it easy for him to acquire an unquestioned sense of social usefulness. For he derives his sense of usefulness mainly from directing, instructing, and planning- from minding other people's business- and is bound to feel superfluous and neglected where people believe themselves competent to manage individual and communal affairs, and are impatient of supervision and regulation. A free society is as much a threat to the intellectual's sense of worth as an automated economy is to the workingman's sense of worth. Any social order that can function with a minimum of leadership will be anathema to the intellectual.

The conception that government should be guided by majority opinion makes sense only if that opinion is independent of government. read more

The conception that government should be guided by majority opinion makes sense only if that opinion is independent of government. The ideal of democracy rests on the belief that the view which will direct government emerges from an independent and spontaneous process. It requires, therefore, the existence of a large sphere independent of majority control in which the opinions of the individuals are formed.

Tourists are terrorists with cameras. Terrorists are tourists with guns.

Tourists are terrorists with cameras. Terrorists are tourists with guns.

I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.

I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.

The plans differ; the planners are all alike...

The plans differ; the planners are all alike...

A lot of fellows nowadays have a B. A., M. D., or Ph. D. Unfortunately, they don't have a J. read more

A lot of fellows nowadays have a B. A., M. D., or Ph. D. Unfortunately, they don't have a J. O. B.

The college idealists who fill the ranks of the environmental movement seem willing to do absolutely anything to save the read more

The college idealists who fill the ranks of the environmental movement seem willing to do absolutely anything to save the biosphere, except take science courses and learn something about it.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed [and hence clamorous to be led to safety] read more

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed [and hence clamorous to be led to safety] by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.