The more you earn, the less you keep, And now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the lord my soul to take If the tax-collector hasn’t got it before I wake. – Ogden Nash, “One From One Leaves Two,” a poem about the New Deal “To be conservative... is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss.” – Michael Oakeshott, professor of political science at the London School of Economics, Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays “To many politicians, cost is the benefit... it means more money to hand out.” – Randal O’Toole, Cato Institute scholar “‘Scientific socialism’... would hold especial attraction for intellectuals by promising to replace spontaneous and messy life with a rational order of which they would be the interpreters and mentors.” – Richard Pipes, Baird Professor of History at Harvard and National Security Council adviser on Soviet and East European Affairs in the Reagan administration, Communism “The special attraction of politics derives from the fact that it is the only occupation which allows the satisfaction of greed or vanity (or both) to be pursued in the name of public good.” – Richard Pipes, Scattered Thoughts , private printing, 2010
“When national debts have once been accumulated to a certain degree, there is scarce, I believe, a single instance of their having been fairly and completely paid.” – Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations “Till we become divine we must be content to be human, lest in our hurry for a change we sink to something lower.” – Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until a majority of voters discover that they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury.” – Attributed (wrongly) to 18th century Scottish jurist and historian Alexander Tytler, but in accord with Tytler’s skepticism about democracy “Common sense is not so common.” – Voltaire, Dictionnaire Philosophique “The enthusiasm of the people is very fine and looks well in print; but I have never known it produce anything but confusion... Trust nothing to the enthusiasm of the people.” – The Duke of Wellington, letter to Lord Bentinck
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