Justice is better than chivalry if we cannot have both.

Justice is better than chivalry if we cannot have both.

Who overcomesBy force, hath overcome but half his foe.

Who overcomesBy force, hath overcome but half his foe.

What right does Congress have to go around making laws just because they deem it necessary?

What right does Congress have to go around making laws just because they deem it necessary?

I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.

I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.

Oh, that lovely title, ex-president.

Oh, that lovely title, ex-president.

The essence of democracy is not that everyone makes and administers laws but that lawgivers and rulers should be dependent read more

The essence of democracy is not that everyone makes and administers laws but that lawgivers and rulers should be dependent on the people's will in such a way that they may be peaceably changed if conflict occurs.

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.

The danger inherent in reform is that the cure may be worse than the disease. Reform is an operation on read more

The danger inherent in reform is that the cure may be worse than the disease. Reform is an operation on the social body; but unlike medical surgeons, reformers are not on guard against unpredictable side effects which may divert the course of reform toward unwanted results. Moreover, quite often the social doctors become part of the disease.

War: a wretched debasement of all the pretenses of civilization.

War: a wretched debasement of all the pretenses of civilization.