...whenever it is necessary that one of several conflicting opinions should prevail and when one would have to be made to prevail by force if need be, it is less wasteful to determine which has the stronger support by counting numbers than by fighting. Democracy is the only method of peaceful change that man has yet been discovered.
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It is not conclusive proof of a doctrine's correctness that its adversaries use the police, the hangman, and violent mobs read more
It is not conclusive proof of a doctrine's correctness that its adversaries use the police, the hangman, and violent mobs to fight it. But it is a proof of the fact that those taking recourse to violent oppression are in their subconsciousness convinced of the untenability of their own doctrines.
Both the revolutionary and the creative individual are perpetual juveniles. The revolutionary does not grow up because he cannot grow, read more
Both the revolutionary and the creative individual are perpetual juveniles. The revolutionary does not grow up because he cannot grow, while the creative individual cannot grow up because he keeps growing.
Habit is the denial of creativity and the negation of freedom; a self-imposed straitjacket of which the wearer is unaware.
Habit is the denial of creativity and the negation of freedom; a self-imposed straitjacket of which the wearer is unaware.
The modern definition of 'racist' is someone who is winning an argument with a liberal.
The modern definition of 'racist' is someone who is winning an argument with a liberal.
Pollution is nothing but the resources we are not harvesting. We allow them to disperse because we've been ignorant of read more
Pollution is nothing but the resources we are not harvesting. We allow them to disperse because we've been ignorant of their value.
Making capitalism out of socialism is like making eggs out of an omelet.
Making capitalism out of socialism is like making eggs out of an omelet.
It is precisely those things which belong to "the people" which have historically been despoiled- wild creatures, the air, and read more
It is precisely those things which belong to "the people" which have historically been despoiled- wild creatures, the air, and waterways being notable examples. This goes to the heart of why property rights are socially important in the first place. Property rights mean self-interested monitors. No owned creatures are in danger of extinction. No owned forests are in danger of being leveled. No one kills the goose that lays the golden egg when it is his goose.
Discontent is likely to be highest when misery is bearable; when conditions have so improved that an ideal state seems read more
Discontent is likely to be highest when misery is bearable; when conditions have so improved that an ideal state seems almost within reach. A grievance is most poignant when almost redressed. De Tocqueville in his researches into the state of society in France before the revolution was struck by the discovery that "in no one of the periods which have followed the Revolution of 1789 has the national prosperity of France augmented more rapidly than it did in the twenty years preceding that event." He is forced to conclude that "the French found their position the more intolerable the better it became.
If we would have civilization and the exertion indispensable to its success, we must have property; if we have property, read more
If we would have civilization and the exertion indispensable to its success, we must have property; if we have property, we must have its rights; if we have the rights of property, we must take those consequences of the rights of property which are inseparable from the rights themselves.
