No one seeks power with a song in his heart.
Ruling
In ’37 Stalin made a hash
Of party loyalists and army brass.
Decimation: One in ten are shot.
What’s the word when one in ten are not?
A well-conducted police state pardons a few prisoners now and then; this persuades the populace that the rest are guilty.
If truth were ever spoken to it power would be grateful.
The fiercest tribal warrior is the universalist.
One ought to be a bit embarrassed to win an election.
The basest viciousness usually wraps itself in a hygienic metaphor.
Only after he has exhausted his other resources does the boy begin to torture insects, or the ruler his subjects.
People would rather be ruled by their own kind than well.
Countries are artificial: cities are natural.
Every new power allies itself with the dispossessed, for the possessed are its competition.