One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.

One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.

It is easy to take liberty for granted when you have never had it taken from you.

It is easy to take liberty for granted when you have never had it taken from you.

A thief believes everybody steals.

A thief believes everybody steals.

Oh, that lovely title, ex-president.

Oh, that lovely title, ex-president.

The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the read more

The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant. - "Leadership Is an Art".

Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat.

Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat.

Discontent is likely to be highest when misery is bearable; when conditions have so improved that an ideal state seems read more

Discontent is likely to be highest when misery is bearable; when conditions have so improved that an ideal state seems almost within reach. A grievance is most poignant when almost redressed. De Tocqueville in his researches into the state of society in France before the revolution was struck by the discovery that "in no one of the periods which have followed the Revolution of 1789 has the national prosperity of France augmented more rapidly than it did in the twenty years preceding that event." He is forced to conclude that "the French found their position the more intolerable the better it became.

Under democracy, one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to read more

Under democracy, one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule -and both commonly succeed, and are right.

...whenever it is necessary that one of several conflicting opinions should prevail and when one would have to be made read more

...whenever it is necessary that one of several conflicting opinions should prevail and when one would have to be made to prevail by force if need be, it is less wasteful to determine which has the stronger support by counting numbers than by fighting. Democracy is the only method of peaceful change that man has yet been discovered.