It is a know fact that almost all revolutions have been the work, not of the common people, but of the aristocracy, and especially of the decayed part of the aristocracy.

The intent of sincere humanitarians is to do good to society, just as the intent of the child who kills a bird by to much fondling is to do good to the bird.

In any series of elements to be controlled, a selected small fraction, in terms of numbers of elements, always accounts for a large fraction in terms of effect.

My wish is to construct a system of sociology on the model of celestial mechanics, physics, and chemistry.

For a very long time, and among a large number of peoples, political power has belonged to the owners of the land.

When it is useful to them, men can believe a theory of which they know nothing more than its name.

The liberals who demanded equality of taxation on behalf of the poor, for instance, did not imagine that they would obtain progressive taxation to the disadvantage of the well-off, and that they would end up with an arrangement in which taxes are voted by those who do not pay them.