If you're Noah, and your ark is about to sink, look for the elephants first, because you can throw over a bunch of cats, dogs, squirrels, and everyth…

- Vilfredo Pareto

The intent of sincere humanitarians is to do good to society, just as the intent of the child who kills a bird by to much fondling is to do good to t…

- Vilfredo Pareto

All governments use force and all assert that they are founded on reason. In fact, whether universal suffrage prevails or not, it is always an oligar…

- Vilfredo Pareto

Men follow their sentiments and their self-interest, but it pleases them to imagine that they follow reason. And so they look for, and always find, s…

- Vilfredo Pareto

There are some people who imagine that they can disarm their enemy by complacent flattery. They are wrong. The world has always belonged to the stron…

- Vilfredo Pareto

The liberals who demanded equality of taxation on behalf of the poor, for instance, did not imagine that they would obtain progressive taxation to th…

- Vilfredo Pareto

The economic and social theories used by those who take part in the social struggle ought to be judged not by their objective value but primarily for…

- Vilfredo Pareto

For a very long time, and among a large number of peoples, political power has belonged to the owners of the land.

- Vilfredo Pareto

The assertion that men are objectively equal is so absurd that it does not even merit being refuted.

- Vilfredo Pareto