A politician will always tip off his true belief by stating the opposite at the beginning of the sentence. For maximum comprehension, do not start listening until the first clause is concluded. Begin instead at the word "but" which begins the second, or active, clause. This is the way to tell a liberal from a conservative -- before they tell you. Thus: "I have always believed in a strong national defense, second to none, but ... " (a liberal, about to propose a $20 billion defense cut).
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I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death.
I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death.
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 most successful career must show a waste of strength that might have removed mountains, and the most unsuccessful is read more
The most successful career must show a waste of strength that might have removed mountains, and the most unsuccessful is not that of the man who is taken unprepared, but of him who has prepared and is never taken. On a tragedy of that kind our national morality is duly silent.
An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with read more
An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life. - Beyond the Horizon, 1942.
What is the use of physicians like myself trying to help parents to bring up children healthy and happy, to read more
What is the use of physicians like myself trying to help parents to bring up children healthy and happy, to have them killed in such numbers for a cause that is ignoble?
No one has a right to happiness.
No one has a right to happiness.
Ideology has very little to do with "consciousness" -- it is profoundly unconscious.
Ideology has very little to do with "consciousness" -- it is profoundly unconscious.
Crime wouldn't pay if the government ran it.
Crime wouldn't pay if the government ran it.
We're all capable of mistakes, but I do not care to enlighten you on the mistakes we may or may read more
We're all capable of mistakes, but I do not care to enlighten you on the mistakes we may or may not have made.
