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?
Revolutions are staffed by those who expect to gain from the coming order, but led by those who expect to suffer, whose negligence of personal considerations betokens their righteousness, and whose zeal is commensurate with their expectation.
Behind every man who believes human nature can be remade at will stands a volunteer for the job.
It is strange, the way people will believe bizarre and byzantine theories about their rulers after years of being lied to by them continuously.
Every voter-registration campaign produces a less competent electorate; indeed, that is its aim.
To destroy a man’s property is to nullify that part of his life devoted to its creation or acquisition. It is to kill him, insensibly and by degrees.
The difference between English and American governance is that everyone knows the Queen is a figurehead.
I would far rather be ruled by the football team than the computer club, let alone the debate team, student government, or model U.N.
The only difference between utopia and dystopia is that utopia is nowhere and dystopia is everywhere.
Today’s politics has no Lenins, and few Stalins, but oh so many Kerenskys.
There is always official doctrine, but it is unusual for the officials to be stupid enough to believe it.