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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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Concentrated political power is the most dangerous thing on earth.

Concentrated political power is the most dangerous thing on earth.

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I have impeached myself by resigning.

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The correct strategy for Americans negotiating with Japanese or other foreign clients is a Japanese strategy: ask questions. When you read more

The correct strategy for Americans negotiating with Japanese or other foreign clients is a Japanese strategy: ask questions. When you think you understand, ask more questions. Carefully feel for pressure points. If an impasse is reached, don't pressure. Suggest a recess or another meeting.

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Social justice is a semantic fraud from the same stable as People's Democracy.

Social justice is a semantic fraud from the same stable as People's Democracy.

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To be a leader of men one must turn one's back on men.

To be a leader of men one must turn one's back on men.

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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?

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It profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world... but for Wales!

It profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world... but for Wales!

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The war for liberty never ends. One day liberty has to be defended against the power of wealth, on another read more

The war for liberty never ends. One day liberty has to be defended against the power of wealth, on another day against the intrigues of politicians, on another against the dead hand of bureaucrats, on another against the patrioter and the militarist, on another against the profiteer, and then against the hysteria and the passions of the mobs, against obscurantism and stupidity, against the criminal and against the overrighteous. In this campaign every civilized man is enlisted till he dies, and he only has known the full joy of living who somewhere and at some time has struck a decisive blow for the freedom of the human spirit.

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A good cause can become bad if we fight for it with means that are indiscriminately murderous. A bad cause read more

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