Democratic Quotes - Page 38

• Yet in a society of conflicting interests the only democratic way in which matters can be improved is through politics, and politics means the compromising of extremes in order to achieve that notorious half loaf which the passionate and the outraged never find sufficient.

  Gore Vidal

  Mean, Order, Matter

  Gore Vidal (1969). “Reflections Upon a Sinking Ship. (1. Ed.)”, Boston : Little, Brown

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• Democratic institutions generally give men a lofty notion of their country and themselves.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Country, Men, Giving

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1863). “Democracy in America”, p.210

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• Democratic nations care but little for what has been, but they are haunted by visions of what will be.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Vision, Democracy, Care

  Democracy in America vol. 2, sec. 1, ch. 17 (1840) (translation by Henry Reeve)

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• Amongst democratic nations, each new generation is a new people.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  People, Generations, New Generation

  Alexis de Tocqueville (2016). “Democracy in America”, p.539, Xist Publishing

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• The taste for well-being is the prominent and indelible feature of democratic times.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Taste, Prosperity, Well Being

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1863). “Democracy in America”, p.30

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• Men living in democratic times have many passions, but most of their passions either end in the love of riches, or proceed from it.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Passion, Men, Riches

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1863). “Democracy in America”, p.278

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• The history of the labor movement needs to be taught in every school in this land. America is a living testimonial to what free men and women, organized in free democratic trade unions can do to make a better life. We ought to be proud of it!

  Hubert H. Humphrey

  School, Men, Land

  Address to the Minnesota State AFL-CIO Convention, 1977.

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• History proves that dictatorships do not grow out of strong and successful governments, but out of weak and helpless ones. If by democratic methods people get a government strong enough to protect them from fear and starvation, their democracy succeeds; but if they do not, they grow impatient. Therefore, the only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over its government.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Strong, Successful, Government

  Franklin D. Roosevelt (2008). “Fireside chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt: radio addresses to the American people about the Depression, the New Deal, and the Second World War, 1933-1944”, Red & Black Pub

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• This growing poverty in the midst of growing population constitutes a permanent menace to peace. And not only to peace, but also to democratic institutions and personal liberty For overpopulation is not compatible with freedom.

  Aldous Huxley

  Liberty, Population, Growing

  Aldous Huxley (2002). “Complete Essays: 1939-1956”, Ivan R Dee

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• Modesty and reverence are no less virtues of freemen than the democratic feeling which will submit neither to arrogance nor to servility.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

  Feelings, Arrogance, Democracy

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• The advertiser is the overrewarded court jester and court pander at the democratic court.

  Joseph Wood Krutch

  Advertising, Court, Jester

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• This is Democratic bedrock: we don't let people lie in the ditch and drive past and pretend not to see them dying. Here on the frozen tundra of Minnesota, if your neighbor's car won't start, you put on your parka and get the jumper cables out and deliver the Sacred Spark that starts their car. Everybody knows this. The logical extension of this spirit is social welfare and the myriad government programs with long dry names all very uninteresting to you until you suddenly need one.

  Garrison Keillor

  Lying, Past, Names

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• The continuation of authority has frequently proved the undoing of democratic governments. Repeated elections are essential to the system of popular governments, because there is nothing so dangerous as to suffer power to be vested for a long time in one citizen. The people become accustomed to obeying him, and he becomes accustomed to commanding, hence the origin of usurpation and tyranny.

  Simon Bolivar

  Government, Long, People

  "The World's Great Speeches". Book edited by Lewis Copeland and Lawrence Lamm, 1958.

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• If one man can be allowed to determine for himself what is law, every man can. That means first chaos, then tyranny. Legal process is an essential part of the democratic process.

  Felix Frankfurter

  Mean, Men, Law

  "United States v. United Mine Workers, 330 U.S. 258". U.S. Supreme Court case, supreme.justia.com. March 6, 1947.

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• To take an analogy: if we say that a democratic government is the best kind of government, we mean that it most completely fulfills the highest function of a government - the realisation of the will of the people.

  John Drinkwater

  Mean, Government, People

  John Drinkwater (1922). “The Lyric: An Essay”

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• The great issues facing us today are not Republican issues or Democratic issues. The political parties can debate the means, but both parties must embrace the end objective, which is to make America great again.

  Lee Iacocca

  Party, Mean, America

  Lee Iacocca, William Novak (2011). “Iacocca: An Autobiography”, p.354, Bantam

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• Although Christianity has never been the guarantee of a democratic state anywhere in the world, no democracy has ever thrived successfully for any period of time outside of Christian influence.

  Theodore White

  Christian, Democracies Have, Democracy

  Theodore H. White (1961). “The Making of the President 1960”

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• If American politics does not look to you like a joke, a tragic dance; if you have enough blindness left in you, on any plea, on any excuse, to vote for the Democratic Party or the Republican Party (for at present machine and party are one), or for any candidate who does not stand for a new era, -- then you yourself pass into the slide of the magic-lantern; you are an exhibit, a quaint product, a curiosity of the American soil. You are part of the problem.

  John Jay Chapman

  Party, Curiosity, Magic

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• The conviction of tragedy that rises out of his [John Dos Passos's] work is the steady protest of a sensitive democratic conscience against the tyranny and the ugliness of society, against the failure of a complete human development under industrial capitalism.

  Alfred Kazin

  Tragedy, Society, Development

  ALFRED kAZIN (1956). “ON NATIVE GROUNDS An Interpretation of Modern American Prose Literature”

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• Insofar as it represents a genuine reconciliation of differences, a consensus is a fine thing; insofar as it represents a concealment of differences, it is a miscarriage of democratic procedure.

  J. William Fulbright

  Miscarriage, Agreement, Differences

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• When public men indulge themselves in abuse, when they deny others a fair trial, when they resort to innuendo and insinuation, to libel, scandal, and suspicion, then our democratic society is outraged, and democracy is baffled. It has no apparatus to deal with the boor, the liar, the lout, and the antidemocrat in general.

  J. William Fulbright

  Liars, Men, Indulge In

  J. William Fulbright's speech in the Senate on McCarthyism (February 2, 1954), as quoted in "Congressional Record", Volume 100 (p. 1105), 1954.

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• Generally speaking, the less privileged groups in democratic society, as they become aware of their interests and their political power, will be found to press for ever more state intervention in practically all fields.

  Gunnar Myrdal

  Political, Groups, Fields

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• When I got to filmmaking, the most democratic of environments where anybody could say anything, those were the best environments, but what you don't want to assume is that you know what the audience is thinking.

  Rick Moranis

  Movie, Thinking, Say Anything

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• Were there a people of gods, their government would be democratic. So perfect a government is not for men.

  Jean-Baptiste Rousseau

  Men, People, Perfect

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• In effect, according to Lenin, socialism and democracy are indivisible. By gaining democratic freedoms the working masses come to power.

  Mikhail Gorbachev

  Democracy, Socialism, Mass

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