Politics and Power

Force always attracts men of low morality.

All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the State.

The savage bows down to idols of wood and stone: the civilized man to idols of flesh and blood.

The art of government is the organization of idolatry.

A politician divides mankind into two classes: tools and enemies.

Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.

The free press is the mother of all our liberties and of our progress under liberty.

Vote: the instrument and symbol of a freeman’s power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.

[ Of Ronald Reagan :] For seven and a half years I have worked alongside him and I am proud to be his partner. We have had triumphs, we have made mistakes, we have had sex.

 

The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.

Let’s talk sense to the American people. Let’stell them the truth, that there are no gains without pains, that we are now on the eve of great decisions, not easy decisions, likeresistance when you’re attacked, but a long, patient, costly struggle which alone can assure triumph over the great enemies of man—war, poverty, and tyranny—and the assaults uponhuman dignity which are the most grievous consequences of each.

 

Governments need both shepherds and butchers.

A great writer is, so to speak, a second government. That’s why no regime anywhere has ever loved its great writers, only its minor ones.

 

I respect Lenin as a man who gave all his energy, at a total sacrifice of his personal life, to dedicating himself to the realization of socialist justice. I don’t consider his methods appropriate. But one thing is certain: Men such as he are the guardians and renewers of mankind’s conscience.

Our nation stands at a fork in the political road. In one direction lies a land of slander and scare; the land of sly innuendo, the poison pen, theanonymous phone call and hustling, pushing, shoving; the land of smash and grab andanything to win. This is Nixonland. But I say toyou that it is not America.

 

Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento (Hae tibi erunt artes), pacique imponere morem, Parcere subiectis et debellare superbos.

The people are the foundation of the country, and food is of the highest importance to the people.

Do you, Ambassador Zorin, deny that theU.S.S.R. has placed and is placing medium-and intermediate-range missiles and sites in Cuba? Yes or no? Don’t wait for the translation. . . . I am prepared to wait for my answer until Hell freezes over, if that’s your decision. And I am also prepared to present the evidence in this room!

 

People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election.

The Gulag Archipelago had already begun its malignant life and would shortly metastasize throughout the whole body of the nation.

 

I yield to no man—if I may borrow thatmajestic parliamentary phrase—I yield to no man in my belief in the principle of free debate, inside or outside the halls of Congress. The sound of tireless voices is the price we pay for the right to hear the music of our own opinions. But there is also, it seems to me, a moment at which democracy must prove its capacity to act. Every man has a right to be heard; but no man has the right to strangle democracy with a single set of vocal cords.

 

[ Of Franklin D. Roosevelt, after meeting him when Holmes was in his nineties and Roosevelt had just become president, 1933 :] A second-class intellect, but a first-class temperament.

 

Many have imagined for themselves republics and principalities that no one has ever seen or known to be in reality. Because how one ought to live is so far removed from how one lives that he who lets go of what is done for that which one ought to do sooner learns ruin than his own preservation.