God Strung Up His Own

I Have Supported My Deviations With Reasons; I Did Not Stop At Mere Doubt; I Have Vanquished, I Have Uprooted, I Have Destroyed Everything In My Heart That Might Have Interfered With My Pleasure.

It Is Certain That Stealing Nourishes Courage, Strength, Skill, Tact, In A Word, All The Virtues Useful To A Republican System And Consequently To Our Own. Lay Partiality Aside, And Answer Me: Is Theft, Whose Effect Is To Distribute Wealth More Evenly, To Be Branded As A Wrong In Our Day, Under Our Government Which Aims At Equality? Plainly, The Answer Is No.

The Mechanism That Directs Government Cannot Be Virtuous, Because It Is Impossible To Thwart Every Crime, To Protect Oneself From Every Criminal Without Being Criminal Too; That Which Directs Corrupt Mankind Must Be Corrupt Itself; And It Will Never Be By Means Of Virtue, Virtue Being Inert And Passive, That You Will Maintain Control Over Vice, Which Is Ever Active: The Governor Must Be More Energetic Than The Governed.

Never Lose Sight Of The Fact That All Human Felicity Lies In Man's Imagination, And That He Cannot Think To Attain It Unless He Heeds All His Caprices. The Most Fortunate Of Persons Is He Who Has The Most Means To Satisfy His Vagaries.

Nature, Who For The Perfect Maintenance Of The Laws Of Her General Equilibrium, Has Sometimes Need Of Vices And Sometimes Of Virtues, Inspires Now This Impulse, Now That One, In Accordance With What She Requires.