Category: Thought

Political necessities sometimes turn out to be political mistakes.

I don’t deserve a share in governing a hen-roost, much less a nation. Nor do most people — all the people who believe advertisements, and think in catchwords and spread rumors. The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.

I can forgive Alfred Nobel for having invented dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize.

Nothing increases the number of jobs so rapidly as labor-saving machinery, because it releases wants theretofore unknown, by permitting leisure.

“The only people who object to escapism are jailers.”

We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.

A watchful eye must be kept on ourselves lest while we are building ideal monuments of Renown and Bliss here we neglect to have our names enrolled in the Annals of Heaven.

The Inca’s way of dealing with his whole empire seems not to have differed from his conduct in setting up his capital. His procedure there too was marked by the elaboration of a rational program, its execution by authoritarian decree, and finally the laying down of regulations designed to prevent any occasion of disturbance and to render the organization definite and permanent. Naturally, this system, so logical in its plan, was bound to encounter obstacles in adapting itself to realities.

Louis Baudin, A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru.