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The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opponents than from his fervent supporters. For his supporters will push him to disaster unless his opponents show him where the dangers are. So if he is wise he will often pray to be delivered from his friends, because they will ruin him. But, though it hurts, he ought also to pray never to be left without opponents; for they keep him on the path of reason and good sense.
反对派是不可或缺的。一个好政治家，就和其他任何明白事理的人一样，永远会从他的反对者那里学到比从他最热心的支持者那里更多的东西。因为除非他的反对者给他指出危险所在，他的支持者们肯定会把他推进灾难之中。所以，如果他聪明的话，他就会常常祈祷能从朋友的影响中解放出来，因为他们会毁了他。但是，虽然这会使他痛苦，他同时还应该希望他永远不会落到没有反对派的地步；因为他们会使他始终不离开理智和明智的道路。
The national unity of a free people depends upon a sufficiently even balance of political power to make it impracticable for the administration to be arbitrary and for the opposition to be revolutionary and irreconcilable. Where that balance no longer exists, democracy perishes. For unless all the citizens of a state are forced by circumstances to compromise, unless they feel that they can affect policy but that no one can wholly dominate it, unless by habit and necessity they have to give and take, freedom cannot be maintained.
一个国家的自由人民的民族团结依靠的是政治权利足够合理的平衡，这样辨治者们就不可能专制武断，而反对派也不至于被迫走向革命，变得不可调和。一旦这种平衡不再存在，民主也就完蛋了，因为除非一个国家所有的公民都在形势的压力下必须调和，除非他们觉得自己能够影响政策，而无人能够完全独霸，除非出于习惯和需要他们不得不礼尚往来，平等对待，否则自由是不可能得到维持的。
