We conclude that the concentration of wealth is natural and inevitable, and is periodically alleviated by violent or peaceable partial redistribution. In this view all economic history is the slow heartbeat of the social organism, a vast systole and diastole of concentrating wealth and compulsive redistribution.

Art lies in conceiving and designing, not in the actual execution' - this was left for lesser minds.

History is so indifferently rich, that a case for almost any conclusion from it can be made by a selection of instances.

In progressive societies the concentration[of wealth] may reach a point where the strength of number in the many poor rivals the strength of ability in the few rich; then the unstable equilibrium generates a critical situation, which history has diversely met by legislation redistributing wealth or by revolution distributing poverty.

The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds.

It came to me that reform should begin at home, and since that day I have not had time to remake the world.

Truth always originates in a minority of one, and every custom begins as a broken precedent.