“Undoubtedly, philosophers are in the right when they tell us that nothing is great or little otherwise than by comparison.”

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 96

Source: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996), Ch. 8 : The West and the Rest: Intercivilizational Issues, § 3 : Human Rights And Democracy, p. 197

Source: The Truth About Forever

Soviet Russia: Some Random Sketches and Impressions (1949)

1760s, A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765)
Context: The poor people, it is true, have been much less successful than the great. They have seldom found either leisure or opportunity to form a union and exert their strength; ignorant as they were of arts and letters, they have seldom been able to frame and support a regular opposition. This, however, has been known by the great to be the temper of mankind; and they have accordingly labored, in all ages, to wrest from the populace, as they are contemptuously called, the knowledge of their rights and wrongs, and the power to assert the former or redress the latter. I say RIGHTS, for such they have, undoubtedly, antecedent to all earthly government, — Rights, that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws — Rights, derived from the great Legislator of the universe.

Source: 1960s, Jours effeuillés: Poèmes, essaies, souvenirs (1966), p. 63
Context: Dada was given the Venus of Milo a clyster and has allowed the Laocoön and his sons to rest awhile, after thousands of years of struggle with the good sausage Python. The philosophers are of less use to Dada than an old toothbrush, and it leaves them on the scrap heap for the great leaders of the world.

Young v. South African, &c. Syndicate (1896), L. R. 2 C. D. [1896], p. 278.

Athos, Ch. 48: A Family Affair.
The Three Musketeers (1844)