Democratic Quotes - Page 35

• Of government, at least in democratic states, it may be said briefly that it is an agency engaged wholesale, and as a matter of solemn duty, in the performance of acts which all self-respecting individuals refrain from as a matter of common decency.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, Agency, Government

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• Despots and democratic majorities are drunk with power.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Freedom, Drunk, Democracy

  Ludwig Von Mises (1963). “Human action: a treatise on economics”

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• ...I am opposed to all attempts to license or restrict the arming of individuals... I consider such laws a violation of civil liberty, subversive of democratic political institutions, and self-defeating in their purpose.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Gun, Self, Law

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• I have a reputation for giving unpopular answers at Democratic debates. I never used marijuana. Sorry!

  Joe Lieberman

  Sorry, Marijuana, Giving

  "The Nation; Explaining Why They Didn't Inhale" by Steven A. Holmes, www.nytimes.com. November 9, 2003.

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• 100 political parties put together can never defeat the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, come 2015 presidential election.

  Patience Jonathan

  Party, Good Luck, Presidential

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• It is my saddest day as an MP when my party brings in a bill which I'm fundamentally opposed to. I'm very sad my party has brought this in without any democratic mandate.

  Peter Bone

  Party, Gay, Mps

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• Every child must be encouraged to get as much education as he has the ability to take. We want this not only for his sake - but for the future of our nation's sake. Nothing matters more to the future of our country: not our military preparedness - for armed might is worthless if we lack the brainpower to build world peace; not our productive economy - for we cannot sustain growth without trained manpower; not our democratic system of government - for freedom is fragile if citizens are ignorant.

  Lyndon B. Johnson

  Education, Country, Peace

  Johnson, Lyndon B. (1966). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1965”, p.26, Best Books on

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• In short, there are certain fundamental requisites for wise and resolute democratic leadership. It must build on hope, not on fear; on honesty, not on falsehood; on justice, not on injustice; on public tranquility, not on violence; on freedom, not on enslavement.

  Edmund Ezra Day

  Wise, Truth, Honesty

  "Education for Freedom and Responsibility: Selected Essays".

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• They tell us that we live in a great free republic; that our institutions are democratic; that we are a free and self-governing people. That is too much, even for a joke. ... Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder... And that is war in a nutshell. The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.

  Eugene V. Debs

  Freedom, War, Self

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• No truly sophisticated proponent of repression would be stupid enough to shatter the facade of democratic institutions.

  Murray Levin

  Freedom, Stupid, Liberty

  Murray Burton Levin (1971). “Political hysteria in America: the democratic capacity for repression”

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• Only religion can prevent democratic rule from developing into mob rule. A nation can prosper only as its citizens are religious, intelligent, capable of service and eager to render it.

  Roger Babson

  Religious, Integrity, Patriotic

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• The right type of [leader] is democratic. He must not consider himself a superior sort of personage. He must actually feel democratic; it is not enough that he try to pose as democratic-he must be democratic, otherwise the veneer, the sheen, would wear off, for you can't fool a body of intelligent American workingmen for very long. He must ring true.

  T. Coleman du Pont

  Integrity, Intelligent, Long

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• Credible reporting indicates that Al Qaeda is moving forward with its plans to carry out a large-scale attack in the United States in an effort to disrupt our democratic process.

  Tom Ridge

  Moving, Effort, United States

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• If we want to produce people who share the values of a democratic culture, they must be taught those values and not be left to acquire them by chance.

  Cal Thomas

  Business, People, Society

  Cal Thomas (1988). “The death of ethics in America”, W Publishing Group

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• If there had been a strong democratic sentiment in Germany, Hitler would never have come to power . [Germans] deserved what they got when they went round crying for a hero.

  A. J. P. Taylor

  Strong, Hero, History

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• Decision by democratic majority vote is a fine form of government, but it's a stinking way to create.

  Lillian Hellman

  Teaching, Majority Vote, Government

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• One of the main purposes of laws in a democratic society is to put burdens upon intelligence and reduce it to impotence. Ostensibly, their aim is to penalize anti-social acts; actually their aim is to penalize heretical opinions. At least ninety-five Americans out of every 100 believe that this process is honest and even laudable; it is practically impossible to convince them that there is anything evil in it. In other words, they cannot grasp the concept of liberty.

  H. L. Mencken

  Business, Believe, Law

  "Liberty and Democracy". Baltimore Evening Sun (April 13, 1925) as quoted in "A Second Mencken Chrestomathy: A New Selection from the Writings of America's Legendary Editor, Critic, and Wit" edited by Terry Teachout (p. 35), 1994.

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• The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.

  Edward Bernays

  Country, Intelligent, Nwo

  Edward L. Bernays (1930). “Propaganda”

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• What we call fiction is the ancient way of knowing, the total discourse that antedates all the special vocabularies....Fiction is democratic, it reasserts the authority of the single mind to make and remake the world.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Writing, Vocabulary, Knowing

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• Sooner or later a democracy which is to survive has to be able to rely upon that enlargement of vision and purpose of those individuals who compose it, which means that their craving for devotion and self-sacrifice is satisfied in a democratic society on a nobler level, and with a finer recognition of the value of individual personality than is true of a national purpose of a totalitarian state under a dictator.

  Ordway Tead

  Mean, Sacrifice, Self

  Attributed to Ordway Tead in "The Forbes scrapbook of Thoughts on the business of life", p. 138, 1950.

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• The political form of a society wherein the proletariat is victorious in overthrowing the bourgeoisie will be a democratic republic.

  Vladimir Lenin

  Political, Bourgeoisie, Republic

  Vladimir Il'ich Lenin (1975). “Izbrannye Proizvedenii͡a V Trekh Tomakh”

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• The role of the teacher remains the highest calling of a free people. To the teacher, America entrusts her most precious resource, her children; and asks that they be prepared ... to face the rigors of individual participation in a democratic society.

  Shirley Hufstedler

  Teacher, Children, Teaching

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• Standing alone among great democratic nations in imposing the death penalty is another moral decision that Americansare being forced to confront.

  Jimmy Carter

  Decision, Death Penalty, Moral

  Jimmy Carter (2005). “Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis”, p.85, Simon and Schuster

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• What the public does is not to express its opinions but to align itself for or against a proposal. If that theory is accepted, we must abandon the notion that democratic government can be the direct expression of the will of the people. We must abandon the notion that the people govern. Instead, we must adopt the theory that, by their occasional mobilizations as a majority, people support or oppose the individuals who actually govern. We must say that the popular will does not direct continuously but that it intervenes occasionally.

  Walter Lippmann

  Government, Expression, People

  "The Essential Lippmann: A Political Philosophy for Liberal Democracy".

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• The best defence [for a democracy, for the public good] is aggressiveness, the aggressiveness of the involved citizen. We need to reassert that slow, time-consuming, inefficient, boring process that requires our involvement; it is called 'being a citizen.' The public good is not something that you can see. It is not static. It is a process. It is the process by which democratic civilizations build themselves.

  John Ralston Saul

  Civilization, Democracy, Needs

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