Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent. Violence appears where power is in jeopardy, but left to its own course it ends in power's disappearance.

While strength is the natural quality of an individual seen in isolation, power springs up between men when they act together and vanishes the moment they disperse.

No punishment has ever possessed enough power of deterrence to prevent the commission of crimes.

The practice of violence, like all action, changes the world, but the most probable change is a more violent world.

Conscience is the anticipation of the fellow who awaits you if and when you come home.

The greatest enemy of authority, therefore, is contempt, and the surest way to undermine it is laughter.

The heritage of the American Revolution is forgotten, and the American government, for better and for worse, has entered into theheritage of Europe as though it were its patrimony--unaware, alas, of the fact that Europe's declining power was preceded and accompanied by political bankruptcy, the bankruptcy of the nation-state and its concept of sovereignty.