All lasting change is incremented, based on unfolding traditions and developing institutions. Revolutionary upheavals may change how the world looks read more

All lasting change is incremented, based on unfolding traditions and developing institutions. Revolutionary upheavals may change how the world looks but seldom changes the way the world works. Lasting historical change comes not through tidal waves but through the irresistible creeping tide.

Politics is not an exact science.

Politics is not an exact science.

One can become a leader only if one is supported by an ideology which makes other people tractable and accommodating.

One can become a leader only if one is supported by an ideology which makes other people tractable and accommodating.

We would like to live as we once lived, but history will not permit it.

We would like to live as we once lived, but history will not permit it.

...this is precisely the purpose of censorship- not only to block unwanted views, but to keep people who are unhappy read more

...this is precisely the purpose of censorship- not only to block unwanted views, but to keep people who are unhappy from knowing how many millions of others share their unhappiness; to keep the dormant opposition from awakening to its own developing strength.

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.

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

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

The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are read more

The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do.

Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If read more

Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.