In war there is no substitute for victory.

In war there is no substitute for victory.

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.

We clamor for equality chiefly in matters in which we ourselves cannot hope to attain excellence. To discover what a read more

We clamor for equality chiefly in matters in which we ourselves cannot hope to attain excellence. To discover what a man truly craves but knows he cannot have we must find the field in which he advocates absolute equality. By this test Communists are frustrated Capitalists.

A war is not won if the defeated enemy has not been turned into a friend.

A war is not won if the defeated enemy has not been turned into a friend.

A lot of fellows nowadays have a B. A., M. D., or Ph. D. Unfortunately, they don't have a J. read more

A lot of fellows nowadays have a B. A., M. D., or Ph. D. Unfortunately, they don't have a J. O. B.

Ideology has very little to do with "consciousness" -- it is profoundly unconscious.

Ideology has very little to do with "consciousness" -- it is profoundly unconscious.

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it, and then misapplying the wrong remedies.

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it, and then misapplying the wrong remedies.

...tradition and custom becomes intertwined and are a strong coercion which directs the society upon fixed lines, and strangles liberty.

...tradition and custom becomes intertwined and are a strong coercion which directs the society upon fixed lines, and strangles liberty.

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.