Oh! Duty is an icy shadow. It will freeze you. It cannot fill the heart's sanctuary.

Oh! Duty is an icy shadow. It will freeze you. It cannot fill the heart's sanctuary.

There is perhaps no better way of measuring the natural endowment of a soul than by its ability to transmute read more

There is perhaps no better way of measuring the natural endowment of a soul than by its ability to transmute dissatisfaction into a creative impulse. The genuine artist is as much a dissatisfied person as the revolutionary, yet how diametrically opposed are the products each distills from his dissatisfaction.

What the public does is not to express its opinions but to align itself for or against a proposal. If read more

What the public does is not to express its opinions but to align itself for or against a proposal. If that theory is accepted, we must abandon the notion that democratic government can be the direct expression of the will of the people. We must abandon the notion that the people govern. Instead we must adopt the theory that, by their occasional mobilizations as a majority, people support or oppose the individuals who actually govern. We must say that the popular will does not direct continuously but that it intervenes occasionally.

None can love freedom but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license, which never hath more scope than read more

None can love freedom but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license, which never hath more scope than under tyrants.

Discontent does not invariably create a desire for change. Other factors have to be present before discontent turns into disaffection. read more

Discontent does not invariably create a desire for change. Other factors have to be present before discontent turns into disaffection. One of these is a sense of power.

Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed.

Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed.

...the differences between the conservative and the radical seem to spring mainly from their attitude toward the future. Fear of read more

...the differences between the conservative and the radical seem to spring mainly from their attitude toward the future. Fear of the future causes us to lean against and cling to the present, while faith in the future renders us receptive to change.

You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the read more

You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.

A country grows in history not only because of the heroism of its troops on the field of battle, it read more

A country grows in history not only because of the heroism of its troops on the field of battle, it grows also when it turns to justice and to right for the conservation of its interests.