Bertrand de Jouvenel Quotes

• The more one considers the matter, the clearer it becomes that redistribution is in effect far less a redistribution of free income from the richer to the poorer, as we imagined, than a redistribution of power from the individual to the State.

  Bertrand de Jouvenel

  Power, Government, Matter

  Baron Bertrand de Jouvenel, Bertrand De Jouvenel (2010). “The Ethics of Redistribution”, p.73, Cambridge University Press

  54 Copy quote

• Sooner or later, a society of sheep must create a government of wolves.

  Bertrand de Jouvenel

  Sheep, Government, Sooner Or Later

  13 Copy quote

• Democracy, then, in the centralizing, pattern-making, absolutist shape which we have given to it is, it is clear, the time of tyranny's incubation.

  Bertrand de Jouvenel

  Democracy, Shapes, Patterns

  Bertrand de Jouvenel (1949). “On Power: Its Nature and the History of Its Growth”

  14 Copy quote

• But there are no institutions on earth which enable each separate person to have a hand in the exercise of Power, for Power is command, and everyone cannot command. Sovereignty of the people is, therefore, nothing but a fiction, and one which must in the long run prove destructive of individual liberties.

  Bertrand de Jouvenel

  Running, Exercise, Hands

  Bertrand de Jouvenel (1949). “On Power: Its Nature and the History of Its Growth”

  12 Copy quote

• The intellectual's hostility to the businessman presents no mystery, as the two have, by function, wholly different standards. While the businessman's motto is the customer is always right, the intellectual's task is to preserve his perceived standards against the weight of popular opinion.

  Bertrand de Jouvenel

  Philosophy, Two, Political

  11 Copy quote

• It is appropriate here to recall that the so-called Dark Ages began with the flight of the individuals into the protection of lords or chapters and came to an end when the individual again found it to his advantage to set forth on his own. We live at a time when everything conspires to push the individual into the fold.

  Bertrand de Jouvenel

  Dark, Age, Flight

  Baron Bertrand de Jouvenel, Bertrand De Jouvenel (2010). “The Ethics of Redistribution”, p.67, Cambridge University Press

  9 Copy quote

• For, once man is declared 'the measure of all things,' there is no longer a true, or a good, or a just, but only opinions of equal validity whose clash can be settled only by political or military force; and each force in turn enthrones in its hour of triumph a true, a good, and a just which will endure just as long as itself.

  Bertrand de Jouvenel

  Military, Men, Long

  7 Copy quote

• Command is a mountaintop. The air breathed there is different, and the perspectives seen there are different, from those of the valley of obedience. The passion for order and the genius for construction, which are part of man's natural endowment, get full play there. The man who has grown great sees from the top of his tower what he can make, if he so wills, of the swarming masses below him.

  Bertrand de Jouvenel

  Passion, Men, Order

  Bertrand de Jouvenel (1949). “On Power: Its Nature and the History of Its Growth”

  6 Copy quote

• Ransack the history of revolutions, and it will be found that every fall of a regime has been presaged by a defiance which went unpunished. It is as true today as it was ten thousand years ago that a Power from which the magic virtue has gone out, falls.

  Bertrand de Jouvenel

  Fall, Years, Magic

  Bertrand de Jouvenel (1949). “On Power: Its Nature and the History of Its Growth”

  6 Copy quote

• A people among whom custom is altogether sovereign endures the despotism of the dead.

  Bertrand de Jouvenel

  People, Sovereign, Despotism

  Bertrand de Jouvenel (1952). “Power: the natural history of its growth”, London, Batchworth P

  4 Copy quote

• We are ending where the savages began. We have found again the lost arts of starving non-combatants, burning hovels, and leading away the vanquished into slavery. Barbarian invasions would be superfluous: we are our own Huns.

  Bertrand de Jouvenel

  Art, Slavery, Invasion

  Bertrand de Jouvenel (1949). “On Power: Its Nature and the History of Its Growth”

  4 Copy quote

• Barbarian invasions would be superfluous: We are our own Huns.

  Bertrand de Jouvenel

  Would Be, Invasion, Barbarians

  Bertrand de Jouvenel (1949). “On Power: Its Nature and the History of Its Growth”

  4 Copy quote

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin