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    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.

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Politics is not a game. It is an earnest business.

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Only enemies speak the truth. Friends and lovers lie endlessly, caught in the web of duty.

Only enemies speak the truth. Friends and lovers lie endlessly, caught in the web of duty.

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Where does virgin wool come from? The sheep that runs the fastest.

Where does virgin wool come from? The sheep that runs the fastest.

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A conservative is a man who just sits and thinks, mostly sits.

A conservative is a man who just sits and thinks, mostly sits.

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There is in us a tendency to locate the shaping forces of our existence outside ourselves. Success and failure are read more

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The world is full of cactus, but we don't have to sit on it.

The world is full of cactus, but we don't have to sit on it.

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When you make as many speeches and you talk as much as I do and you get away from the read more

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To succeed in politics, it is often necessary to rise above your principles.

To succeed in politics, it is often necessary to rise above your principles.

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