I was known as the chief grave robber of my state.

I was known as the chief grave robber of my state.

What the public does is not to express its opinions but to align itself for or against a proposal. If read more

What the public does is not to express its opinions but to align itself for or against a proposal. If that theory is accepted, we must abandon the notion that democratic government can be the direct expression of the will of the people. We must abandon the notion that the people govern. Instead we must adopt the theory that, by their occasional mobilizations as a majority, people support or oppose the individuals who actually govern. We must say that the popular will does not direct continuously but that it intervenes occasionally.

The office of president is a bastardized thing, half royalty and half democracy, that nobody knows whether to genuflect or read more

The office of president is a bastardized thing, half royalty and half democracy, that nobody knows whether to genuflect or spit.

Even more significant of the inherent weakness of the collectivist theories is the extraordinary paradox that from the assertion that read more

Even more significant of the inherent weakness of the collectivist theories is the extraordinary paradox that from the assertion that society is in some sense more than merely the aggregate of all individuals their adherents regularly pass by a sort of intellectual somersault to the thesis that in order that the coherence of this larger entity be safeguarded it must be subjected to conscious control, that is, to the control of what in the last resort must be an individual mind. It thus comes about that in practice it is regularly the theoretical collectivist who extols individual reason and demands that all forces of society be made subject to the direction of a single mastermind, while it is the individualist who recognizes the limitations of the powers of individual reason and consequently advocates freedom as a means for the fullest development of the powers of the interindividual process.

A real leader faces the music, even when he doesn't like the tune.

A real leader faces the music, even when he doesn't like the tune.

Given that some social processes must convey inherent constraints, the choice is among various mixtures of persuasion, force, and cultural read more

Given that some social processes must convey inherent constraints, the choice is among various mixtures of persuasion, force, and cultural inducement. The less of one, the more of the others. The degree of freedom that is possible is therefore tied to the extent to which people respond to persuasion or inducement.

Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.

Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.

The part of our social order which can or ought to be made a conscious product of human reason is read more

The part of our social order which can or ought to be made a conscious product of human reason is only a small part of all the forces of society.

I'm going to be a vice president very much like George Bush was. He proved to be a very effective read more

I'm going to be a vice president very much like George Bush was. He proved to be a very effective vice president, perhaps the most effective we've had in a couple of hundred years.