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

The search for moral guidance which shall not depend upon external authority has invariably ended in the acknowledgment of some new authority.

Success makes men rigid and they tend to exalt stability over all the other virtues; tired of the effort of willing they become fanatics about conservatism.

When everyone thinks the same, nobody is thinking.

The first principle of a civilized state is that power is legitimate only when it is under contract.

In the end, advertising rests upon the fact that consumers are a fickle and superstitious mob, incapable of any real judgment as to what it wants or how it is to get what it thinks it likes.

You cannot endow even the best machine with initiative; the jolliest steamroller will not plant flowers.