Every murderous totalitarian government of the 20th century began with some insulated group of faux-intellectuals congratulating each other on how smart they are, and fantasizing about how, if they could just install a dictatorship-for-a-day, they could right all the wrongs in the world.
Ed Driscoll, in The New York Times: Forever Trapped in 1917
Ed: Woops. Quote is from Anchoress, via Driscoll. Sorry, Anchoress.