Necessity is the plea of every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed read more

Necessity is the plea of every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.

The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it.

The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it.

Politics is not an exact science.

Politics is not an exact science.

The future will be better tomorrow.

The future will be better tomorrow.

If nominated, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve. - On the request that he accept the read more

If nominated, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve. - On the request that he accept the Republican presidential nomination.

All I ask is equal freedom. When it is denied, as it always is, I take it anyhow.

All I ask is equal freedom. When it is denied, as it always is, I take it anyhow.

Political history is largely an account of mass violence and of the expenditure of vast resources to cope with mythical read more

Political history is largely an account of mass violence and of the expenditure of vast resources to cope with mythical fears and hopes.

Without a country, I am not a man.

Without a country, I am not a man.

Except in the sacred texts of democracy and in the incantations of orators, we hardly take the trouble to pretend read more

Except in the sacred texts of democracy and in the incantations of orators, we hardly take the trouble to pretend that the rule of the majority is not at bottom a rule of force. What other virtue can there be in fifty-one percent except the brute fact that fifty-one is more than forty-nine? The rule of fifty-one per cent is a convenience, it is for certain matters a satisfactory political device, it is for others the lesser of two evils, and for others it is acceptable because we do not know any less troublesome method of obtaining a political decision. But it may easily become an absurd tyranny if we regard it worshipfully, as though it were more than a political device. We have lost all sense of its true meaning when we imagine that the opinion of fifty-one per cent is in some high fashion the true opinion of the whole hundred per cent, or indulge in the sophistry that the rule of a majority is based upon the ultimate equality of man.