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The unique character of political activity lies, quite literally, in its publicity.

Bernard Crick

The politician has no more use for pride than Falstaff had for honour.
BERNARD CRICK

Honour Politician Pride Use
Politics is a way of ruling in divided societies without undue violence…politics is not just a necessary evil; it is a realistic good.
BERNARD CRICK

Evil Political Politics
To Marx the claim of the theory of ideology is that all doctrine is a derivative of social circumstance.
BERNARD CRICK

Derivatives Doctrine Social
Individualism and Economic Order and many other works, which is, to put it briefly, the whole of laisser-faire economic theory, then plainly man as such a programmed predator has very little interest in being fraternal, or very little chance.
BERNARD CRICK

Economic Individualism Programmed Such Theory
Since the business of politics is the conciliation of differing interests, justice must not merely be done, but to be seen to be done.
BERNARD CRICK

Done Interest Justice
Totalitarianism surpasses autocracy.
BERNARD CRICK

Autocracy Totalitarianism
The unique character of political activity lies, quite literally, in its publicity.
BERNARD CRICK

Character Lying Unique
Too often the revolutionary is the man who must create order in the chaos left by failed conservatives.
BERNARD CRICK

Chaos Conservatives Men Order
The method of rule of the tyrant and the oligarch is quite simply to clobber, coerce, or overawe all or most other groups in the interest of their own.
BERNARD CRICK

Groups Method Tyrants
The plain truth is that what holds a free state together is neither general will nor a common interest, but simply politics itself.
BERNARD CRICK

Political Politics Together
Quite apart from the prestige of technology, people do, after all, prefer a simple idea to a complex one.
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Ideas Simple Technology
Totalitarian rule marks the sharpest contrast imaginable with political rule, and ideological thinking is an explicit and direct challenge to political thinking.
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Challenges Ideological Political Rule Thinking
The idea of a rational bureaucracy, of skill, merit, and consistency, is essential to all modern states.
BERNARD CRICK

Consistency Ideas Skills
The praise of free men is worth having, for it is the only praise which is free from either servility or condescension.
BERNARD CRICK

Condescension Men Praise
One of the symptoms of a declining social order is that its members have to give most of their time to politics, rather than to the real tasks of economic production, in an attempt to patch up the cracks already appearing from the ‘inner contradictions’ of such a system.
BERNARD CRICK

Giving Order Real
Where government is impossible, politics is impossible.
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Government Impossible
Free men stick their necks out.
BERNARD CRICK

Free Men Neck Sticks
If a government is to do great new things, it will need more support. If a government is to change the world, it will need mass support. This is one of the discoveries of modern government.
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Discovery Government Need Support
The agony of international relations is the need to try to practice politics without the basic conditions for political order.
BERNARD CRICK

Agony Order Practice
The political process is not tied to any particular doctrine. Genuine political doctrines, rather, are the attempt to find particular and workable solutions to this perpetual and shifty problem of conciliation.
BERNARD CRICK

Doctrine Political Politics Problem
If, of course, one builds into the concept of an ‘individual’ all that Professor Hayek does in his Road To Serfdom.
BERNARD CRICK

Builds Men Order Professor
What matters in Politics is what men actually do – sincerity is no excuse for acting unpolitically, and insincerity may be channelled by politics into good results.
BERNARD CRICK

Acting Matter Men What
Certainly if the fundamental problem of society is that demands are infinite and resources are always limited, politics, not economics is the master science.
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Demand Fundamentals Problem
Politics has rough manners, but it is a very useful thing.
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Manners Rough Things Useful
There is no great danger to politics in the desire for certainty at any price.
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Certainty Danger Desire
In an abstract but real sense, Marxism arose through the breakdown first of religion and then of ‘reason’ as single sources of authority.
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Firsts Real Reason
Politics deserves much praise. Politics is a preoccupation of free men, and its existence is a test of freedom. The praise of free men is worth having, for it is the only praise which is free from either servility or condescension.
BERNARD CRICK

Men Political Politics

The unique character of political activity lies, quite literally, in its publicity.

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The unique character of political activity lies, quite literally, in its publicity.

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