The tendency of democracies is, in all things, to mediocrity.

The tendency of democracies is, in all things, to mediocrity.

You really have to experience the feeling of being with the president in the oval office. ... It's a disease read more

You really have to experience the feeling of being with the president in the oval office. ... It's a disease I came to call Ovalitis.

It is a dangerous and idle dream to think that the state can become rule by philosophers turned kings or read more

It is a dangerous and idle dream to think that the state can become rule by philosophers turned kings or scientists turned commissars. For if philosophers become kings or scientists commissars, they become politicians, and the powers given to the state are powers given to men who are rulers of states, men subject to all the limitations and temptations of their dangerous craft. Unless this is borne in mind, there will be a dangerous optimistic tendency to sweep aside doubts and fears as irrelevant, since, in the state that the projectors have in mind, power will be exercised by men of a wisdom and degree of moral virtue that we have not yet seen. It won't. It will be exercised by men who will be men first and rulers next and scientists and saints long after.

The state is the great fiction by which everybody tries to live at the expense of everybody else.

The state is the great fiction by which everybody tries to live at the expense of everybody else.

...the crimes of violence committed for selfish, personal motives are historically insignificant compared to those committed ad majorem gloriam Dei, read more

...the crimes of violence committed for selfish, personal motives are historically insignificant compared to those committed ad majorem gloriam Dei, out of a self-sacrificing devotion to the flag, a leader, a religious faith or political conviction.

The military don't start wars. Politicians start wars.

The military don't start wars. Politicians start wars.

I was recently on a tour of Latin America,and the only regret I have was that I didn't study Latin read more

I was recently on a tour of Latin America,and the only regret I have was that I didn't study Latin harder in school so I could converse with those people.

We are as free as and free in exactly the sense that our neuronal processes are free.

We are as free as and free in exactly the sense that our neuronal processes are free.

It is the duty of righteous men to make war on all undeserved privilege, but one must not forget that read more

It is the duty of righteous men to make war on all undeserved privilege, but one must not forget that this is a war without end.