The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop.

The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop.

Where things have not changed at all, there is the least likelihood of revolution.

Where things have not changed at all, there is the least likelihood of revolution.

The right to be let alone is the underlying principle of the Constitution's Bill of Rights.

The right to be let alone is the underlying principle of the Constitution's Bill of Rights.

There is perhaps no better way of measuring the natural endowment of a soul than by its ability to transmute read more

There is perhaps no better way of measuring the natural endowment of a soul than by its ability to transmute dissatisfaction into a creative impulse. The genuine artist is as much a dissatisfied person as the revolutionary, yet how diametrically opposed are the products each distills from his dissatisfaction.

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.

...there is no glory in battle worth the blood it costs.

...there is no glory in battle worth the blood it costs.

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.

Even a cursory glance at history should convince one that individual crimes committed for selfish motives play a quite insignificant read more

Even a cursory glance at history should convince one that individual crimes committed for selfish motives play a quite insignificant part in the human tragedy, compared to the numbers massacred in unselfish loyalty to one's tribe, nation, dynasty, church, or political ideology, ad majorem gloriam dei. The emphasis is on unselfish. Excepting a small minority of mercenary or sadistic disposition, wars are not fought for personal gain, but out of loyalty and devotion to king, country or cause. Homicide committed for personal reasons is a statistical rarity in all cultures, including our own. Homicide for unselfish reasons, at the risk of one's own life, is the dominant phenomenon of history.

So far as business and money are concerned, a country gains nothing by a successful war, even though that war read more

So far as business and money are concerned, a country gains nothing by a successful war, even though that war involves the acquisition of immense new provinces.