It is perfectly true that that government is best which governs least. It is equally true that that government is best which provides most.

Creative ideas come to the intuitive person who can face up to the insecurity of looking beyond the obvious.

Unless the reformer can invent something which substitutes attractive virtues for attractive vices, he will fail.

Lovers who have nothing to do but love each other are not really to be envied; love and nothing else very soon is nothing else.

What the public does is not to express its opinions but to align itself for or against a proposal. If that theory is accepted, we must abandon the notion that democratic government can be the direct expression of the will of the people. We must abandon the notion that the people govern. Instead, we must adopt the theory that, by their occasional mobilizations as a majority, people support or oppose the individuals who actually govern. We must say that the popular will does not direct continuously but that it intervenes occasionally.

The common interests very largely elude public opinion entirely, and can be managed only by a specialised class.

Men are mortal, but ideas are immortal.