Sublime

Populism gives life to Michel Foucault’s celebrated reversal of the Clausewitz dictum: Politics is the pursuit of war by other means.

In aristocracies rulers sometimes endeavor to corrupt the people—In democracies rulers frequently show themselves to be corrupt—In the former their vices are directly prejudicial to the morality of the people—In the latter their indirect influence is still more pernicious.

When the legislator has regulated the law of inheritance, he may rest from his labor. The machine once put in motion will go on for ages, and advance, as if self-guided, towards a given point. When framed in a particular manner, this law unites, draws together, and vests property and power in a few hands: its tendency is clearly aristocratic.

Machiavelli teaches that in a world where so many are not good, you must learn to be able to not be good. The virtues taught in our secular and religious schools are incompatible with the virtues one must practice to safeguard those same institutions. . . . Machiavelli has long been called a teacher of evil. The author of “The Prince” never urged

“The mission of the tyrant,” says Aristotle, “is to protect the people against the rich; he has always commenced by being a demagogue, and it is the essence of tyranny to oppose the aristocracy.”

virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue comes money and every other good of man, public as well as private.