No serious historian of politics would imagine that he had accounted for the protective tariff of the system of bounties read more

No serious historian of politics would imagine that he had accounted for the protective tariff of the system of bounties or subsidies, for the monetary and banking laws, for the state of law in regard to corporate privileges and immunities, for the actual status of property rights, for agricultural or for labor policies, until he had gone behind the general claims and the abstract justifications and had identified the specifically interested groups which promoted the specific law.

A monarch's neck should always have a noose around it -- it keeps him upright.

A monarch's neck should always have a noose around it -- it keeps him upright.

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.

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.

Sometimes cameras and television are good to people and sometimes they aren't. I don't know if its the way you read more

Sometimes cameras and television are good to people and sometimes they aren't. I don't know if its the way you say it, or how you look.

When the same man, or set of men, holds the sword and the purse, there is an end of liberty.

When the same man, or set of men, holds the sword and the purse, there is an end of liberty.

Even a cursory glance at history should convince one that individual crimes committed for selfish motives play a quite insignificant read more

Even a cursory glance at history should convince one that individual crimes committed for selfish motives play a quite insignificant part in the human tragedy, compared to the numbers massacred in unselfish loyalty to one's tribe, nation, dynasty, church, or political ideology, ad majorem gloriam dei. The emphasis is on unselfish. Excepting a small minority of mercenary or sadistic disposition, wars are not fought for personal gain, but out of loyalty and devotion to king, country or cause. Homicide committed for personal reasons is a statistical rarity in all cultures, including our own. Homicide for unselfish reasons, at the risk of one's own life, is the dominant phenomenon of history.

Let the sun shine in.

Let the sun shine in.

If a politician murders his mother, the first response of the press or of his opponents will likely be not read more

If a politician murders his mother, the first response of the press or of his opponents will likely be not that it was a terrible thing to do, but rather that in a statement made six years before he had gone on record as being opposed to matricide.