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    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.

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A monarch's neck should always have a noose around it -- it keeps him upright.

A monarch's neck should always have a noose around it -- it keeps him upright.

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  6  /  14  

War is a ritual, a deadly ritual, not the result of aggressive self-assertion, but of self-transcending identification. Without loyalty to read more

War is a ritual, a deadly ritual, not the result of aggressive self-assertion, but of self-transcending identification. Without loyalty to tribe, church, flag or ideal, there would be no wars.

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  13  /  34  

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.

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  12  /  16  

If you make a living, if you earn your own money, you're free -- however free one can be on read more

If you make a living, if you earn your own money, you're free -- however free one can be on this planet.

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  13  /  9  

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.

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  14  /  22  

Socialism is Bolshevism with a shave.

Socialism is Bolshevism with a shave.

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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.

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Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.

Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.

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We once worried that democracy could not survive if an undereducated populace knew too little. Now we worry if it read more

We once worried that democracy could not survive if an undereducated populace knew too little. Now we worry if it can survive us knowing too much.

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