There is Jackson with his Virginians, standing like a stone wall. Let us determine to die here, and we will read more

There is Jackson with his Virginians, standing like a stone wall. Let us determine to die here, and we will conquer.

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.

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.

If the small minority of enlightened citizens who are able to conceive sound principles of political management do not succeed read more

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.

We live in a world in which politics has replaced philosophy.

We live in a world in which politics has replaced philosophy.

I can see clearly now ... that I was wrong in not acting more decisively and more forthrightly in dealing read more

I can see clearly now ... that I was wrong in not acting more decisively and more forthrightly in dealing with Watergate...

God himself has no right to be a tyrant.

God himself has no right to be a tyrant.

The people who remained victorious were less like conquerors than conquered.

The people who remained victorious were less like conquerors than conquered.

The wealth and prosperity of the country are only the comeliness of the body, the fullness of the flesh and read more

The wealth and prosperity of the country are only the comeliness of the body, the fullness of the flesh and fat; but the spirit is independent of them; it requires only muscle, bone and nerve for the true exercise of its functions. We cannot lose our liberty, because we cannot cease to think.