Essays, Speeches and Memoirs of Field-Marshal Count Helmuth Von Moltke #225975

Indeed only the unavoidable necessity of the pre servation of being and of unalienable human rights, and not hope, be it ever so alluring, not dissatisfaction, be it ever so well based, not example, be it ever so near at hand, can move a people, one would suppose, to expose itself to the incalculable casualties of anarchy, of civil war, of foreign tyranny, and Of ruin. For the revolutions which in their time of duration have made even the worst government a thing to be wished for again have led quite as Often to despotism as to freedom. We seek in vain for the cause and the consequent result only there where not conviction, but passion, not deep-felt necessity, but interests are to a certain extent the springs of action which set the mass in motion.