Top 12 Quotes by Bertrand de Jouvenel

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

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

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

Bertrand de Jouvenel

Sheep, Government, Sooner Or Later

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”

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”

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

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

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

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”

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”

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

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”