Vilfredo Pareto

“History is a graveyard of aristocracies.”

“My wish is to construct a system of sociology on the model of celestial mechanics, physics, and chemistry.”

“For a very large class of phenomena, 80% of the consequences stem from 20% of the causes.”

“The class="highlight">governing class is not a homogeneous body. It has a varied structure, being divided into two groups: one which governs and the other which does not.”

“Human actions are for the most part non-logical.”

“Whoever would deceive others must first learn to deceive himself.”

“Give me a fruitful error any time, full of seeds, bursting with its own corrections. You can keep your sterile truth for yourself.”

“The actions of men are not logical. They are the result of sentiments.”

“A politician is a man who thinks of the next election; a statesman of the next generation.”

“Men follow their sentiments and their self-interest, but it pleases them to imagine that they follow reason.”

“The circulation of elites is a fundamental process of social change.”

“An ounce of logic is worth a pound of rhetoric.”

“The movements of human society are of two kinds: those which tend to a state of equilibrium, and those which tend to disturb it.”

“The real man is a man of sentiment and not a man of principles.”

“A revolution is a change in the governing elite.”