Originality consists in thinking for yourself, not in thinking differently from other people. - James Fitzjames Stephen

To try to make men equal by altering social arrangements is like trying to make the cards of equal value by shuffling the pack.

The result of cutting [political power] up into little bits is simply that the man who can sweep the greatest number into one heap will govern the rest... In a pure democracy the ruling men will be the wirepullers and their friends; but they will no more be on an equality with the voters than soldiers of Ministers of State are on an equality with the subjects of monarchy.

To say that the law of force is abandoned because force is regular, unopposed, and beneficially exercised, is to say that day and night are now such well-established institutions that the sun and moon are mere superfluities.