The successful politician owes his power to the fact that he moves within the accepted framework of thought, that he thinks and talks conventionally. It would be almost a contradiction in terms for a politician to be a leader in the field of ideas. His task in a democracy is to find out what the opinions held by the largest number are, not to give currency to new opinions which may become the majority view in some distant future.
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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.
My father was a minister. I had to make up for the lack of sin.
My father was a minister. I had to make up for the lack of sin.
A conservative is a man who just sits and thinks, mostly sits.
A conservative is a man who just sits and thinks, mostly sits.
The beef industry has contributed to more American deaths than all the wars of this century, all natural disasters, and read more
The beef industry has contributed to more American deaths than all the wars of this century, all natural disasters, and all automobile accidents combined.
Take away the cause, and the effect ceases.
Take away the cause, and the effect ceases.
What the public does is not to express its opinions but to align itself for or against a proposal. If read more
What the public does is not to express its opinions but to align itself for or against a proposal. If that theory is accepted, we must abandon the notion that democratic government can be the direct expression of the will of the people. We must abandon the notion that the people govern. Instead we must adopt the theory that, by their occasional mobilizations as a majority, people support or oppose the individuals who actually govern. We must say that the popular will does not direct continuously but that it intervenes occasionally.
I was known as the chief grave robber of my state.
I was known as the chief grave robber of my state.
What right does Congress have to go around making laws just because they deem it necessary?
What right does Congress have to go around making laws just because they deem it necessary?
Freedom has cost too much blood and agony to be relinquished at the cheap price of rhetoric.
Freedom has cost too much blood and agony to be relinquished at the cheap price of rhetoric.
