JAMES BRYCE

Our country is not the only thing to which we owe our allegiance. It is also owed to justice and to humanity.

Three-fourths of the mistakes a man makes are made because he does not really know what he thinks he knows.

Patriotism consists not in waving the flag, but in striving that our country shall be righteous as well as strong.

The worth of a book is to be measured by what you can carry away from it.

I am astonished at the strong feeling of dislike and contempt—I might almost say hatred—which the bulk of the whites have for their black neighbours.

Democratic self-government is a plant of remarkably slow growth

Why the best men do not get into politics.

A political career brings out the basest qualities in human nature.

All legislative bodies which control pecuniary interests are as sure to have a lobby as an army to have camp followers. Where the body is, there will the vultures be gathered together.

Immigrants follow blindly leaders of their own race, are not moved by discussion, exercise no judgment of their own ... are not fit for the suffrage ... know nothing of the institutions of the country, of its statesmen, of its political issues.

In a democracy the People are entitled to determine the Ends or general aims of foreign policy.

[Commenting on America:] In no other country is the ideal side of public life so ignored by the mass and repudiated by its leaders.

Men are impatient of the slow working of natural laws. The triumphs of physical science have enlarged their desires for comfort.

No high qualities of statesmanship are expected from a Congressman.

Politician is a term of reproach.

Towering over Presidents and State Governors, over Congress and State Legislatures, over conventions and the vast machinery of party, public opinion stands out in the United States, as the great source of Power.

[Describing America:] Public opinion, which is there omnipotent, is generally right in its aims ...

The power of groups of men organized by incorporation ... or of small knots of rich men acting in combination has developed with unexpected strength in unexpected ways, overshadowing individuals and even communities, and showing that the very freedom of association which men sought to secure by law when they were threatened by the violence of the potentates may, under the shelter of law, ripen into a new form of tyranny.

The Supreme Court is the living voice of the Constitution—that is, of the will of the people expressed in the fundamental law they have enacted. It is ... the conscience of the people.... It is the guarantee of the minority who, when threatened by the impatient vehemence of the majority, can appeal to this permanent law, finding the interpreter and enforcer thereof in a Court set high above the assaults of faction.

The American Constitution has changed, is changing, and by the law of its very existence must continue to change, in its substance and practical working even its words remain the same.

The government of the cities is the one conspicuous failure of the United States.

The House [of Representatives] has become not so much a legislative assembly as a huge panel from which committees are selected.

[The impeachment power] is the heaviest piece of artillery in the congressional arsenal, but because it is so heavy it is unfit for ordinary use.

The President has rarely leisure to give close or continuous attention to foreign policy.

The President is hampered at every turn by the necessity of humoring his party.