For Americans war is almost all of the time a nuisance, and military skill is a luxury like Mah-Jongg. But when the issue is brought home to them, war becomes as important, for the necessary period, as business or sport. And it is hard to decide which is likely to be the more ominous for the Axis -- an American decision that this is sport, or that it is business. - The American Character.
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What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don't like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don't expect freedom to survive very long.
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Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous.
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It is precisely those things which belong to "the people" which have historically been despoiled- wild creatures, the air, and waterways being notable examples. This goes to the heart of why property rights are socially important in the first place. Property rights mean self-interested monitors. No owned creatures are in danger of extinction. No owned forests are in danger of being leveled. No one kills the goose that lays the golden egg when it is his goose.
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In republican governments, men are all equal; equal they are also is despotic governments: in the former, because they are everything; in the latter, because they are nothing.
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Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote. The relative positions to be assumed by man and woman in the working out of our civilization were assigned long ago by a higher intelligence than ours.
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The worst evils which mankind has ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments. The state can be and has often been in the course of history the main source of mischief and disaster.
Every politician should have been born an orphan and remain a bachelor.
Every politician should have been born an orphan and remain a bachelor.
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The genius of a good leader is to leave behind him a situation which common sense, without the grace of genius, can deal with successfully.
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We treat our people like royalty. If you honor and serve the people who work for you, they will honor and serve you.
