Democracies Have Quotes - Page 6

• Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.

  Abraham Lincoln

  4th Of July, Patriotic, America

  Gettysburg Address, Gettysburg, Pa., 19 Nov. 1863.

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• Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, Religion, Democracy

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• Democracy is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people.

  Harry Emerson Fosdick

  Freedom, People, Diversity

  "The Home Book of Quotations, Classical and Modern". Book by Burton Egbert Stevenson, 1937.

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• It may be concluded that a pure democracy . . . can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction.

  James Madison

  Democracy, May, Factions

  Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison (2010). “The Federalist: A Commentary on the Constitution of the United States”, p.58, Modern Library

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• Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.

  Plato

  Plato, Political, Democracy

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• When people put their ballots in the boxes, they are, by that act, inoculated against the feeling that the government is not theirs. They then accept, in some measure, that its errors are their errors, its aberrations their aberrations, that any revolt will be against them. It's a remarkably shrewd and rather conservative arrangement when one thinks of it.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Thinking, Errors, Government

  "The Age of Uncertainty". Book by John Kenneth Galbraith. Chapter 12, p. 330, 1977.

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• The leading student of business propaganda, Australian social scientist Alex Carey, argues persuasively that “the 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy.

  Noam Chomsky

  Mean, Australia Day, Political

  Noam Chomsky (1997). “World Orders, Old and New”, p.89, Pluto Press

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• It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.

  C. S. Lewis

  Libertarian Party, Government, Security And Freedom

  C. S. Lewis (2014). “God in the Dock”, p.324, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

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• Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Government, Voters, Aliens

  Franklin D. Roosevelt's address in Marietta, Ohio, July 8, 1938.

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• Education is a human right with immense power to transform

  Kofi Annan

  Education, Democracy, Human Development

  Twitter post from Jun 03, 2016

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• Democracy needs support, and the best support for democracy comes from other democracies.

  Benazir Bhutto

  Support, Democracy, Needs

  Benazir Bhutto (1989). “Speeches and Statements: Apr. 2-Nov. 14, 1989”

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• The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."

  Isaac Asimov

  Mean, Ignorance, Knowledge

  "A Cult of Ignorance". Newsweek, January 21, 1980.

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• Government is best which governs least

  Thomas Paine

  Freedom, Government, Libertarian Party

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• So, two cheers for Democracy: one because it admits variety and two because it permits criticism.

  E. M. Forster

  Cheer, Two, Democracy

  Two Cheers for Democracy "What I Believe" (1951)

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• Imagine if all of life were determined by majority rule. Every meal would be a pizza. Every pair of pants, even those in a Brooks Brothers suit, would be stone-washed denim. Celebrity diet and exercise books would be the only thing on the shelves at the library. And - since women are a majority of the population - we'd all be married to Mel Gibson.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Life, Brother, Book

  P.J. O'Rourke (2015). “Thrown Under the Omnibus”, p.207, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• What worker or peasant can pay 80 - 90 million dollars to elect a senator or 4 billion to elect a president? Only great capital can do that. That is why we say that bourgeois democracy has been evolving in the last years into dollar democracy, this is not the democracy of sovereignty, and only the people can determine that.

  Alejandro Castro Espin

  Years, People, President

  "The Future of Cuba". Interview with Lasonas Pipinis Velasco, www.counterpunch.org. February 27, 2015.

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• The idea of democracy has been stripped of it moral imperatives and come to denote hollowness and hypocrisy.

  Paul Wellstone

  Ideas, Hypocrisy, Democracy

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• Majorities can be wrong, majorities can overrule rights of minorities. If majorities ruled, we could still have slavery. 80% of the population once enslaved 20% of the population. While run by majority rule that is ok. That is very flawed notion of what democracy is. Democracy has to take into account several things - proportionate requirements of people, not just needs of the majority, but also needs of the minority. Majority, especially in societies where the media manipulates public opinion, can be totally wrong and evil. People have to act according to conscience and not by majority vote.

  Howard Zinn

  Running, Rights, Evil People

  "Rebels Against Tyranny". Interview with Ziga Vodovnik, www.counterpunch.org. May 12, 2008.

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• Democracy has at least one merit, namely that a Member of Parliament cannot be stupider than his constituents, for the more stupid he is, the more stupid they were to elect him.

  Bertrand Russell

  Stupid, Democracy, Merit

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Autobiography”, p.66, Routledge

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• Democracy has two excesses to avoid: the spirit of inequality, which leads to an aristocracy, or to the government of a single individual; and the spirit of extreme equality, which conducts it to despotism, as the despotism of a single individual finishes by conquest.

  Baron de Montesquieu

  Wisdom, Government, Two

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• In the strict sense of the term, a true democracy has never existed, and never will exist.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Democracy, Existence, Term

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• But now well democracy has shown us that what is evil are the grosses têtes, the big heads, all big heads are greedy for money and power, they are ambitious that is the reason they are big heads and so they are at the head of the government and the result is misery for the people. They talk about cutting off the heads of the grosses têtes but now we know that there will be other grosses têtes and the will be all the same.

  Gertrude Stein

  Cutting, Government, People

  "Paris France". Book by Gertrude Stein, p. 28 (in 1970 edition), 1940.

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• In nation after nation, democracy has taken the place of autocracy.

  John Charles Polanyi

  Taken, Democracy, Autocracy

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• Once the philosophical foundation of democracy has collapsed, the statement that dictatorship is bad is rationally valid only for those who are not its beneficiaries, and there is no theoretical obstacle to the transformation of this statement into its opposite.

  Max Horkheimer

  Philosophical, Opposites, Democracy

  Max Horkheimer (2013). “Eclipse of Reason”, p.19, A&C Black

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• Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.

  John Dewey

  Democracy, Generations, Born

  John Dewey (1980). “The Middle Works, 1899-1924”, p.139, SIU Press

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