A man cannot be a good doctor and keep telephoning his broker between patients nor a good lawyer with his eye on the ticker.

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

Successful democratic politicians are insecure and intimidated men. They advance politically only as they placate, appease, bribe, seduce, bamboozle, or otherwise manage to manipulate the demanding and threatening elements in their constituencies. The decisive consideration is not whether the proposition is good but whether it is popular -- not whether it will work well and prove itself but whether the active talking constituents like it immediately. Politicians rationalize this servitude by saying that in a democracy public men are the servants of the people.

For the newspaper is in all literalness the bible of democracy, the book out of which a people determines its conduct. It is the only serious book most people read. It is the only book they read every day.

To create a minimum standard of life below which no human being can fall is the most elementary duty of the democratic state.

The consent of the governed" is more than a safeguard against ignorant tyrants: it is an insurance against benevolent despots as well.

The smashing of idols is in itself such a preoccupation that it is almost impossible for the iconoclast to look clearly into a future when there will not be many idols left to smash.