Books Quote by Sinclair Lewis

“idealism misconstrues agency, implying the capacity to bring about influence where that capacity may not exist or where it may only be weak.”

— James Davison Hunter

“Our contemporaries are constantly wracked by two warring passions: they feel the need to be led and the desire to remain free. Unable to…

— Alexis de Tocqueville

“The nation which will not adopt an equilibrium of power must adopt a despotism. There is no other alternative.”

— John Adams

“First, it is a commitment to particularism, to giving priority to the specificity of particulars, not to abstractions and generalities that divert our attention…

— José Medina

“However enlightened and however skilful a central power may be, it cannot of itself embrace all the details of the existence of a great…

— Alexis de Tocqueville

“But in many other cases, just the opposite takes place, and the process of political centralization also ushers in an era of greater absolutism.”

— Daron Acemoğlu

“Madison’s response is famously expressed in Federalist 10, “The Utility of the Union as a Safeguard against Domestic Faction and Insurrection”—arguing that tyranny of…

— John Avlon

“Wise politics is the art of invigorating society and weakening the State.”

— Nicolás Gómez Dávila

“It might therefore be better for the decentralization to be designed by a centralized authority, with the interest of the less advantaged or less…

— Abhijit V. Banerjee

“Economy is idealism in its most practical form.”

— Calvin Coolidge

“It has ever been the tendency of power to add to itself, to enlarge its sphere, to encroach beyond the limits set for it;…

— Benjamin Ricketson Tucker

“When the barons and local elites recognize that political power will be increasingly more centralized and that this process is hard to stop, they…

— Daron Acemoğlu