He is free who knows how to keep in his own hand the power to decide, at each step, the read more

He is free who knows how to keep in his own hand the power to decide, at each step, the course of his life, and who lives in a society which does not block the exercise of that power.

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.

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.

I've never professed to be anything but an average student.

I've never professed to be anything but an average student.

My brother Bob doesn't want to be in government -- he promised Dad he'd go straight.

My brother Bob doesn't want to be in government -- he promised Dad he'd go straight.

It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions read more

It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.

All the president is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing, and kicking people to read more

All the president is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing, and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway.

Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be president, but they don't want them to become politicians in read more

Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be president, but they don't want them to become politicians in the process.

War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means.

War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means.