The ingrained idea that, because there is no king and they despise titles, the Americans are a free people is read more

The ingrained idea that, because there is no king and they despise titles, the Americans are a free people is pathetically untrue. There is a perpetual interference with personal liberty over there that would not be tolerated in England for a week.

I like the English. They have the most rigid code of immorality in the world.

I like the English. They have the most rigid code of immorality in the world.

Except in the sacred texts of democracy and in the incantations of orators, we hardly take the trouble to pretend read more

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.

Both free speech rights and property rights belong legally to individuals, but their real function is social, to benefit vast read more

Both free speech rights and property rights belong legally to individuals, but their real function is social, to benefit vast numbers of people who do not themselves exercise these rights.

In America, it is indispensable that every well wisher of true liberty should understand that acts of tyranny can only read more

In America, it is indispensable that every well wisher of true liberty should understand that acts of tyranny can only proceed from the publick. The publick, then, is to be watched, in this country, as, in other countries kings and aristocrats are to be watched.

The more I saw of foreign countries the more I loved my own.

The more I saw of foreign countries the more I loved my own.

The genius of a good leader is to leave behind him a situation which common sense, without the grace of read more

The genius of a good leader is to leave behind him a situation which common sense, without the grace of genius, can deal with successfully.

A society that does not recognize that each individual has values of his own which he is entitled to follow read more

A society that does not recognize that each individual has values of his own which he is entitled to follow can have no respect for the dignity of the individual and cannot really know freedom.

Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for the appointment by the corrupt few.

Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for the appointment by the corrupt few.