“An armed society is a polite society.”

Source: Democracy Ancient And Modern (Second Edition) (1985), Chapter 4, Socrates and After, p. 140

Maiden speech on 24 May 2005

"That what Everybody Says must be True".
Sketches from Life (1846)

Source: The Internet Galaxy - Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society (2001), Chapter 5, Computer Networks and Civil Society, p. 137

Wines, Michael. “China’s Impolitic Artist, Still Waiting to Be Silenced.” New York Times, November 28, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/28/world/asia/28weiwei.html?pagewanted=all
2000-09, 2009

The Political System: An Inquiry into the State of Political Science (1953)

Source: Nonconformity (1953/1996)
Context: You don't write a novel out of sheer pity any more than you blow a safe out of a vague longing to be rich. Compassion is all to the good, but vindictiveness is the verity Faulkner forgot: the organic force in every creative effort, from the poetry of Villon to the Brinks Express Robbery, that gives shape and color to all our dreams. [... ] A certain ruthlessness and a sense of alienation from society is as essential to creative writing as it is to armed robbery. The strong-armer isn't out merely to turn a fast buck any more than the poet is out solely to see his name on the cover of a book, whatever satisfaction that event may afford him. What both need most deeply is to get even. And, of course, neither will.

Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft