“We throw all our attention on the utterly idle question whether A has done as well as B, when the only question is whether A has done as well as he could.”
“All history is only one long story to this effect: men have struggled for power over their fellowmen in order that they might win the joys of earth at the expense of others, and might shift the burden of life from their own shoulders upon those of ot”
“If you want a war, nourish a doctrine. Doctrines are the most frightful tyrants to which men are ever subject, because doctrines get inside a man's reason and betray him against himself. Civilized men have done their fiercest fighting for doctrines.”
“Civil liberty is the status of the man who is guaranteed by law and civil institutions the exclusive employment of all his own powers for his own welfare.”
“It is the tendency of the social burdens to crush out the middle class, and to force society into an organization of only two classes, one at each social extreme.”
“Men never cling to their dreams with such tenacity as at the moment when they are losing faith in them, and know it, but do not dare yet to confess it to themselves.”
“The men who start out with the notion that the world owes them a living generally find that the world pays its debt in the penitentiary or the poor house”
