Sublime

Another cause tends to render the efforts of a democratic government less persevering than those of an aristocracy. Not only are the lower classes less awakened than the higher orders to the good or evil chances of the future, but they are liable to suffer far more acutely from present privations. The noble exposes his life, indeed, but the chance

On the basis of Mr. Blatchford's view of heredity and environment, the case for the aristocracy is quite overwhelming. If clean homes and clean air make clean souls, why not give the power (for the present at any rate) to those who undoubtedly have the clean air? If better conditions will make the poor more fit to govern themselves, why should not

Augustus had attempted a careful balancing act, combining extra privileges for the senate and a parade of civilitas with an attempt to reconfigure the old Republican institution into something closer to an arm of administration in his new regime.

When the house of one of the conspirators was found stuffed with weapons, the man protested his innocence by claiming that his hobby was weapon collecting.

In the political speculation of the seventeenth century, there were two main types of theory as to the origin of government. Of one type we have had an example in Sir Robert Filmer: this type maintained that God had bestowed power on certain persons, and that these persons, or their heirs, constituted the legitimate government, rebellion against wh

He raised his head with an expression of sovereign authority, an expression all the more alarming in proportion as the authority rests on a low level, ferocious in the wild beast, atrocious in the man of no estate.

The management of empire

I have already observed that in democracies the members of the legal profession and the magistrates constitute the only aristocratic body which can check the irregularities of the people.

He believed that there could be greater liberty under such an authority than in its absence: “Men have no pleasure, but on the contrary a great deal of grief, in keeping company where there is no power able to overawe them all.” In a world without rules, he wrote, “nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have t