“There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration.”

"Fooling the People as a Fine Art", La Follette's Magazine (April 1918)

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Article 4
Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776)

§3 p. 83
BiblioTech (2015)

Socialism (1922), Epilogue (1947)
Context: State and government are the social apparatus of violent coercion and repression. Such an apparatus, the police power, is indispensable in order to prevent anti-social individuals and bands from destroying social co-operation. Violent prevention and suppression of anti-social activities benefit the whole of society and each of its members. But violence and oppression are none the less evils and corrupt those in charge of their application. It is necessary to restrict the power of those in office lest they become absolute despots. Society cannot exist without an apparatus of violent coercion. But neither can it exist if the office holders are irresponsible tyrants free to inflict harm upon those they dislike.

"In the News" (June 13, 1941)

Book XIV, Chapter 1
The History of Tom Jones (1749)

The Socialist Party and the Working Class (1904)
Context: There has never been a free people, a civilized nation, a real republic on this earth. Human society has always consisted of masters and slaves, and the slaves have always been and are today, the foundation stones of the social fabric.
Wage-labor is but a name; wage-slavery is the fact.

1930s, From the film Triumph of the Will (1935)