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Democracy Quotes

The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletariat to the level of stupidity attained by the b...

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Charity is today a 'political charity.'. . . it means the transformation of a society structured to ...

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You have the army of mediocrities followed by the multitude of fools. As the mediocrities and the fo...

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Picture of Guy de Maupassant
Guy de MaupassantLes dimanches d'un bourgeois de Paris

The job of a citizen is to keep his mouth open.

Well, anyhow, the practical outcome of all these damn democratic ideas, is that men of our quality -...

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The thing they wanted they called the Vote, but that demand so hollow, so eyeless, had all the terri...

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Picture of H. G. Wells
H. G. WellsThe Wife of Sir Isaac Harman

The day of democracy is past," he said. "Past for ever. That day began with the bowmen of Crecy, it ...

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H. G. WellsWhen the Sleeper Wakes

What men value in the world is not rights but privileges.

Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.

Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.

When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of...

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The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and ha...

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Picture of H. L. Mencken
H. L. MenckenA Little Book in C Major

I do not believe in democracy, but I am perfectly willing to admit that it provides the only really ...

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No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have searched the record for years, and employed agents...

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Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party ...

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Picture of H. L. Mencken
H. L. MenckenMinority Report

Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. No one in this worl...

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As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul...

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Picture of H. L. Mencken
H. L. MenckenOn Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe

I would go one step further and say that the willingness to challenge professional economists - and ...

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Political thought is representative. I form an opinion by considering a given issue from different v...

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It was not, however, to these Fascist groups, numerically unimportant as they were, that the Third R...

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Conflict is not unavoidable. However, it is nonsensical to consider the institution of a state as a ...

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With a [democratic] government anyone in principle can become a member of the ruling class or even t...

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Hans-Hermann HoppeDemocracy--The God That Failed: The Economics and Politics of Monarchy

Without the continued existence of the democratic system and of publicly funded education and resear...

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

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Democracy is based on the conviction that man has the moral and intellectual capacity as well as th...

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There's not a branch of publishing or broadcasting that doesn't depend in some way on advertising. I...

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You don't spread democracy with a barrel of a gun.

In a democracy, if you don't get the votes, nothing else is possible, no matter how wonderful your d...

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Democracy is not the end point of mankind. There may be developments in many different directions in...

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This dullness of vision regarding the importance of the general welfare to the individual is the mea...

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In an effort to eliminate the possibility of any rival growing up, some monopolists would sacrifice ...

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If we put our trust in the common sense of common men and 'with malice toward none and charity for a...

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Until democracy in effective enthusiastic action fills the vacuum created by the power of modern inv...

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I, too, like yourself was a good party man: my party was that of the Church; I was ultramontane. You...

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Washington was no politician as we understand the word," replied Ratcliffe abruptly. "He stood outsi...

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He was holding his breath so as not to inhale the odor of democracy.

The greatest lesson for democracies to learn is for the majority to give to the minority a full, fre...

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If you get so unequal that people believe they don't have a chance, that the field isn't level for t...

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The worst thing that can happen in a democracy - as well as in an individual's life - is to become c...

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There has always been, and there is now, a profound conflict of interest between the people and the ...

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I was astonished, bewildered. This was America, a country where, whatever its faults, people could s...

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Picture of Howard Zinn
Howard ZinnYou Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times

Perhaps the most important thing I learned was about democracy, that democracy is not our government...

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Howard ZinnYou Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times

Noam Chomsky has a book, which I read for the first time when I was in Spain, called 'Fear of Democr...

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The main problem in any democracy is that crowd-pleasers are generally brainless swine who can go ou...

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Picture of Hunter S. Thompson
Hunter S. ThompsonFear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72

A totally befuddled voter may look at a Vote for McGovern sign and do just that.

Picture of Hunter S. Thompson
Hunter S. ThompsonFear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72

Just the other day the AP wire had a story about a man from Arkansas who entered some kind of contes...

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Picture of Hunter S. Thompson
Hunter S. ThompsonFear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72

But you can live in the most democratic country on earth, and if you're lazy, obtuse or servile with...

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Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions - it only guarantees equality of opportunity.

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-int...

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I salute all the nations of the Arab Spring and I salute the heroic people of Syria who are striving...

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Britain, which in the years immediately before this war was rapidly losing such democratic virtues a...

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In a democracy, dissent is an act of faith.

When public men indulge themselves in abuse, when they deny others a fair trial, when they resort to...

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The majority is by no means omniscient just because it is the majority. In fact, I've found that the...

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With the end of the cold war, all the 'isms' of the 20th century - Fascism, Nazism, Communism and th...

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One look at the officials in the American Consulate where we went for dreary paper routines was enou...

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Picture of Jack Kerouac
Jack KerouacDesolation Angels

Democracy is a con game. It’s a word invented to placate people to make them accept a given institut...

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People are constantly applying double standards. Take the United States, for example. Washington wan...

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It is not enough for a population or a section of the population to have Christian faith and be doci...

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If I am asked, What do you propose to substitute for universal suffrage? Practically, What have you ...

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The substance of what I have to say to the disadvantage of the theory and practice of universal suff...

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the library is the last free space for the gathering and sharing of knowledge: “Our attention cannot...

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They shouldnt teach their immigrants' kids all about democracy unless they mean to let them have a l...

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I like it too," Angelo said. "I love this country. Much you and anybody, and you know it.""I know it...

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A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer ...

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Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be ...

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Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.

The basic problem is that web 2.0 tools are not supportive of democracy by design. They are tools de...

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If there were a nation of Gods, it would govern itself democratically. A government so perfect is no...

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As soon as any man says of the affairs of the State "What does it matter to me?" the State may be gi...

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Democracy not only requires equality but also an unshakable conviction in the value of each person, ...

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It is the greatest good to the greatest number which is the measure of right and wrong.

We are now at risk of having a zombie democracy roaming around a one-party state.

Remember something, if you will, about voting: Voting is not a horse race, you're not going there th...

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The theory of relativity worked out by Mr. Einstein, which is in the domain of natural science, I be...

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Ours was the first nation to be founded on the idea that all are created equal and all deserve equal...

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The experience of democracy is like the experience of life itself-always changing, infinite in its v...

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We can't equate democracy with Christianity because the largest democracy on earth is India, which i...

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I do not say that democracy has been more pernicious on the whole, and in the long run, than monarch...

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Picture of John Adams
John AdamsThe Letters of John and Abigail Adams

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was ...

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Picture of John Adams
John AdamsThe Works Of John Adams

It is a melancholy fact which exponents of democracy must face that, while all men may be on a level...

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Were the judgments of mankind correct, custom would be regulated by the good. But it is often far ot...

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Picture of John Calvin
John CalvinInstitutes of the Christian Religion

Democracy is a way of life controlled by a working faith in the possibilities of human nature. Belie...

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While the living thing may easily be crushed by superior force, it none the less tries to turn the e...

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For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on...

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We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philoso...

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Men being, as has been said, by nature, all free, equal and independent, no one can be put out of th...

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Picture of John Locke
John LockeSecond Treatise of Government

Democracy is like a tamborine - not everyone can be trusted with it.

The major western democracies are moving towards corporatism. Democracy has become a business plan, ...

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The U.S. is a cosmetic democracy.

. . . the only legitimate reason that kingship is not attractive to us is because in this age and th...

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. . . the only legitimate reason that kingship is not attractive to us is because in this age and th...

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. . . the only legitimate reason that kingship is not attractive to us is because in this age and th...

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. . . the only legitimate reason that kingship is not attractive to us is because in this age and th...

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technologies come and go. Economic structures evolve and change. Society adjusts. But democratic bas...

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Picture of John Ralston Saul
John Ralston SaulThe Unconscious Civilization

... you can't start with a democracy. You have to work up through stuff like tyranny and monarchy fi...

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To think that because those who wield power in society wield in the end that of government, therefor...

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Picture of John Stuart Mill
John Stuart MillConsiderations on Representative Government

The form of association, however, which if mankind continue to improve, must be expected in the end ...

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Picture of John Stuart Mill
John Stuart MillPrinciples of Political Economy: And Chapters on Socialism

You have to remember one thing about the will of the people: it wasn't that long ago that we were sw...

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