I hereby resign this office of president of the United States.

I hereby resign this office of president of the United States.

The aggressor is always peace-loving; he would prefer to take over our country unopposed.

The aggressor is always peace-loving; he would prefer to take over our country unopposed.

No intelligent man has any respect for an unjust law.

No intelligent man has any respect for an unjust law.

The main political problem is how to prevent the police power from becoming tyrannical. This is the meaning of all read more

The main political problem is how to prevent the police power from becoming tyrannical. This is the meaning of all the struggles for liberty.

If nominated, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve. - On the request that he accept the read more

If nominated, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve. - On the request that he accept the Republican presidential nomination.

One of the peculiarities of the American Revolution was that its leaders pinned their hopes on the organization of decision-making read more

One of the peculiarities of the American Revolution was that its leaders pinned their hopes on the organization of decision-making units, the structuring of their incentives, and the counterbalancing of the units against one another, rather than on the more usual (and more exciting) principle of substituting "the good guys" for "the bad guys.".

The direct use of physical force is so poor a solution to the problem of limited resources that it is read more

The direct use of physical force is so poor a solution to the problem of limited resources that it is commonly employed only by small children and great nations.

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me. But it can keep him from lynching read more

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me. But it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.

Except in the sacred texts of democracy and in the incantations of orators, we hardly take the trouble to pretend read more

Except in the sacred texts of democracy and in the incantations of orators, we hardly take the trouble to pretend that the rule of the majority is not at bottom a rule of force. What other virtue can there be in fifty-one percent except the brute fact that fifty-one is more than forty-nine? The rule of fifty-one per cent is a convenience, it is for certain matters a satisfactory political device, it is for others the lesser of two evils, and for others it is acceptable because we do not know any less troublesome method of obtaining a political decision. But it may easily become an absurd tyranny if we regard it worshipfully, as though it were more than a political device. We have lost all sense of its true meaning when we imagine that the opinion of fifty-one per cent is in some high fashion the true opinion of the whole hundred per cent, or indulge in the sophistry that the rule of a majority is based upon the ultimate equality of man.