There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because read more

There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.

The state is the great fiction by which everybody tries to live at the expense of everybody else.

The state is the great fiction by which everybody tries to live at the expense of everybody else.

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 reason there are so few female politicians is that it is too much trouble to put makeup on two read more

The reason there are so few female politicians is that it is too much trouble to put makeup on two faces.

Rousseau had it backwards. We are NOT born free. We are born in the chains of the random and the read more

Rousseau had it backwards. We are NOT born free. We are born in the chains of the random and the reflexive, and are ignorant and unreasonable by simple nature. We must learn to be free, to organize the random and detect the reflexive, to acquire the knowledge of particulars and the powers of reason. The examined life is impossible if we cannot examine, order, classify, define, distinguish, always in minute particulars.

They who have reasoned ignorantly, or who have aimed at effecting their personal ends by flattering the popular feeling, have read more

They who have reasoned ignorantly, or who have aimed at effecting their personal ends by flattering the popular feeling, have boldly affirmed that "one man is as good as another;" a maxim that is true in neither nature, revealed morals, nor political theory.

By the end, everybody had a label -- pig, liberal, radical, revolutionary ... If you had everything but a gun, read more

By the end, everybody had a label -- pig, liberal, radical, revolutionary ... If you had everything but a gun, you were a radical but not a revolutionary.

'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, read more

'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.

Our elections are free -- it's in the results where eventually we pay.

Our elections are free -- it's in the results where eventually we pay.