The simple opposition between the people and big business has disappeared because the people themselves have become so deeply involved in big business.

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 thinker dies, but his thoughts are beyond the reach of destruction. Men are mortal; but ideas are immortal.

It is all very well to talk about being the captain of your soul. It is hard, and only a few heroes, saints, and geniuses have been the captains of their souls for any extended period of their lives.

A man who has humility will have acquired in the last reaches of his beliefs the saving doubt of his own certainty.

There is only one purpose to which a whole society can be directed by a deliberate plan. That purpose is war, and there is no other.

There is nothing so good for the human soul as the discovery that there are ancient and flourishing civilized societies which have somehow managed to exist for many centuries and are still in being though they have had no help from the traveler in solving their problems.