Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God's service when it is violating all His laws. our passions, ambitions, avarice, love and resentment, etc., posses so much metaphysical subtlety and so much overpowering eloquence that they insinuate themselves into the understanding and the conscience and convert both to their party.
-- John Adams, writing to Thomas Jefferson
Quoted in Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History, Chapter 2
Monday, March 12, 2012
Quote of the Day
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