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Sections (Content) :
• 1
The State is government from above downward of an immense number of men, very different from the point of view of the degree of their culture, the nature of the countries or localities that they inhabit, the occupation they follow, the interests and the aspirations directing them -- the State is the government of all these by some or other minority; this minority, even if it were a thousand times elected by universal suffrage and controlled in its acts by popular institutions, unless it were endowed with the omniscience, omnipresence and the omnipotence which the theologians attribute to God, it is impossible that it could know and foresee the needs, or satisfy with an even justice the most legitimate and pressing interests in the world. There will always be discontented people because there will always be some who are sacrificed.
• 2
We are firmly convinced that the most imperfect republic is a thousand times better than the most enlightened monarchy. In a republic, there are at least brief periods when the people, while continually exploited, is not oppressed; in the monarchies, oppression is constant. The democratic regime also lifts the masses up gradually to participation in public life -- something the monarchy never does. Nevertheless, while we prefer the republic, we must recognize and proclaim that whatever the form of government may be, so long as human society continues to be divided into different classes as a result of the hereditary inequality of occupations, of wealth, of education, and of rights, there will always be a class-restricted government and the inevitable exploitation of the majorities by the minorities.
The State is nothing but this domination and this exploitation, well regulated and systematized.
• 3
...that act ceases to be an act of stupidity or an entitlement and becomes an act of theft when, having recourse to the brutal numbers game, the voter foists his sovereignty upon the sovereignty of the minorities.
• 4
...governments do not, and cannot rise to a higher moral level than the moral level of the men who compose them.
• 5
It may be more difficult to move the mind of millions than to move a mountain.
• 6
You complain that our decrees are not carried out. Well, citizens, are you not yourselves somewhat accessory to this fault?
• 7
Even under popular governments, men sometimes drop the consideration of their political rights, and appear at times remiss or supine...
• 8
...people...seem good but really are not.
• 9
There is no authority in churches or priests -- no authority in numbers or majorities. The only authority is Nature -- the facts we know. Facts are the masters, the enemies of the ignorant, the servants and friends of the intelligent.
Ignorance is the mother of mystery and misery, of superstition and sorrow, of waste and want.
• 10
...the divine right of majorities is a dogma as little possessed of absolute truth as any other.
• 11
The "liberal" bourgeois is genuinely liberal up to the point where his own interests stop.
• 12
...where, unless the election were unanimous, would be the obligation on the minority to submit to the choice of the majority? How have a hundred men who wish for a master the right to vote on behalf of ten who do not?
• 13
Jurors, when their fixed ideas are attacked, have just as hard heads as the stiffest despots and their servile officials.
• 14
...any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one already.
• 15
I wish my countrymen to consider, that whatever the human law may be, neither an individual nor a nation can ever commit the least act of injustice against the obscurest individual, without having to pay the penalty for it. A government which deliberately enacts injustice, and persists in it, will at length ever become the laughing-stock of the world.
Chronology :
March 12, 2020 : The Majority -- Added.
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