The ordinary politician has a very low estimate of human nature. In his daily life he comes into contact chiefly with persons who want to get something or to avoid something. Beyond this circle of seekers after privileges, individuals and organized minorities, he is aware of a large unorganized, indifferent mass of citizens who ask nothing in particular and rarely complain. The politician comes after a while to think that the art of politics is to satisfy the seekers after favors and to mollify the inchoate mass with noble sentiments and patriotic phrases.

There can be no liberty for a community which lacks the means by which to detect lies.

The private citizen, beset by partisan appeals for the loan of his Public Opinion, will soon see, perhaps, that these appeals are not a compliment to his intelligence, but an imposition on his good nature and an insult to his sense of evidence.

Most men, after a little freedom, have preferred authority with the consoling assurances and the economy of effort it brings.

The justification of majority rule in politics is not to be found in its ethical superiority.

Every fairly intelligent person is aware that the price of respectability is a muffled soul bent on the trivial and the mediocre.

I demand from you in the name of your principles the rights which I shall deny to you later in the name of my principles.