No serious historian of politics would imagine that he had accounted for the protective tariff of the system of bounties or subsidies, for the monetary and banking laws, for the state of law in regard to corporate privileges and immunities, for the actual status of property rights, for agricultural or for labor policies, until he had gone behind the general claims and the abstract justifications and had identified the specifically interested groups which promoted the specific law.
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Love your enemies just in case your friends turn out to be a bunch of bastards.
Love your enemies just in case your friends turn out to be a bunch of bastards.
Diplomacy is to do and say the nastiest things in the nicest way.
Diplomacy is to do and say the nastiest things in the nicest way.
It is much safer to obey, than to govern.
It is much safer to obey, than to govern.
Ideology has very little to do with "consciousness" -- it is profoundly unconscious.
Ideology has very little to do with "consciousness" -- it is profoundly unconscious.
Government is beating into submission, imprisoning, and killing...The authority of man-made law is entirely due to weapons of the constables read more
Government is beating into submission, imprisoning, and killing...The authority of man-made law is entirely due to weapons of the constables who enforce obedience to its provisions.
Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote. The relative positions to be assumed by man and woman in read more
Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote. The relative positions to be assumed by man and woman in the working out of our civilization were assigned long ago by a higher intelligence than ours.
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.
Mystical references to "society" and its programs to "help" may warm the hearts of the gullible but what it really read more
Mystical references to "society" and its programs to "help" may warm the hearts of the gullible but what it really means is putting more power in the hands of bureaucrats.
The art of the indirect approach can only be mastered, and its full scope appreciated, by study of and reflection read more
The art of the indirect approach can only be mastered, and its full scope appreciated, by study of and reflection upon the whole history of war. But we can at least crystallize the lessons into two simple maxims- one negative, the other positive. The first is that, in face of the overwhelming evidence of history, no general is justified in launching his troops to a direct attack upon an enemy firmly in position. The second, that instead of seeking to upset the enemy's equilibrium by one's attack, it must be upset before a real attack is, or can be successfully launched.
