The successful politician owes his power to the fact that he moves within the accepted framework of thought, that he thinks and talks conventionally. It would be almost a contradiction in terms for a politician to be a leader in the field of ideas. His task in a democracy is to find out what the opinions held by the largest number are, not to give currency to new opinions which may become the majority view in some distant future.
Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.
Some politicians do introduce new ideas that later gain majority support.
The power which a multiple millionaire, who may be my neighbour and perhaps my employer, has over me is very much less that which the smallest functionaire pos…
The ultimate decision about what is accepted as right and wrong will be made not by individual human wisdom but by the disappearance of the groups that have ad…
The part of our social order which can or ought to be made a conscious product of human reason is only a small part of all the forces of society.
We seem to assume that if only someone could find the cure for our disease, some new plan, we should at once see that it was the cure and apply it. We ask for …
When an opinion has taken root in a democracy and established itself in the minds of the majority, it afterward persists by itself, needing no effort to mainta…
The American, if he has a spark of national feeling, will be humiliated by the very prospect of a foreigner's visit to Congress - these, for the most part, ill…