You and I are forever at the mercy of the census-taker and the census-maker. That impertinent fellow who goes from house to house is one of the real masters of the statistical situation. The other is the man who organizes the results.

Once you touch the biographies of human beings, the notion that political beliefs are logically determined collapses like a pricked balloon.

The best servants of the people, like the best valets, must whisper unpleasant truths in the master's ear. It is the court fool, not the foolish courtier, whom the king can least afford to lose.

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.

Private property was the original source of freedom. It still is its main bulwark.

And the principle which distinguishes democracy from all other forms of government is that in a democracy the opposition not only is tolerated as constitutional but must be maintained because it is in fact indispensable.

In a free society the state does not administer the affairs of men. It administers justice among men who conduct their own affairs.