DEMOCRACY

Related Subjects: America, Anarchy, Capitalism, Election, Equality, Freedom, Government, Liberty, Majority, Minority, People, Politics, Propaganda, Right, Voting

1. If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost.—ARISTOTLE, Politics
   

2. It is just as important to prove that democracy can foster good plays and short stories and mural paintings as to prove our ability to build airplanes. . . . Happiness should be the chief cornerstone in national defense.—HEYWOOD BROUN, The Federal Theatre
   

3. According to the aristocratic idea, the representative thinks for his constituents; according to the democratic idea, the representative thinks with his constituents. A representative has no right to defeat the wishes of those who elect him, if he knows their wishes.—WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN
   

4. A perfect democracy is there­fore the most shameless thing in the world.—BURKE, Reflections on the Revolution in France
   

5. Democracy is, by the nature of it, a self-cancelling business; and gives in the long run a net result of zero.—CARLYLE, Chartism
   

6. You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution.—G. K. CHESTERTON, Tremendous Trifles

7. The Commonwealth is one. We are all members of one body. The welfare of the weakest and the welfare of the most powerful are inseparably bound together. Industry cannot flourish if labor languish .. . it is well to remember that the benefit of one is the benefit of all, and the neglect of one is the neglect of all.CALVIN COOLIDGE
   

8. Caesarism is democracy without liberty.—TAXILE DELORD, L'Histoire du Second Empire
   

9. Democracy is on trial in the world, on a more colossal scale than ever before.—C. F. DOLE, The Spirit of Democracy
   

10. Wherever we look we come back to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as the anchors of our democracy and welfare. We do not want an empire, we want democracy. The ideal of democracy is the highest humanity ever developed.—THEODORE DREISER
    

11. To speak of democracy flourishing and being saved or advanced in war is like speaking of a fish flourishing out of water. The only air in which democracy can breathe is peace and it must be free air and abundant air, in which all ideas regardless of labels and origins can be expressed.—THEODORE DREISER
    

12. The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians.—DISRAELI, Lothair
    

13. Drawn to the dregs of a democracy.—DRYDEN, Absalom and Achitophel
    

14. Every man is wanted, and no man is wanted much.—EMERSON, Nominalist and Realist
    

15. The people I admire most are those who are sensitive and want to create something or discover something, and don't see life in terms of power, and such people get more of a chance under a democracy than elsewhere.—E. M. FORSTER, I Believe
    

16. Democracy has another merit. It allows criticism, and if there isn't public criticism there are bound to be hushed up scandals. That is why I believe in the press, despite all its lies and vulgarity . .. I believe in the private member (of Parliament) who makes himself a nuisance. He gets snubbed and is told that he is cranky or ill-informed, but he exposes abuses which would otherwise never have been mentioned.—E. M. FORSTER, I Believe
    

17. Democracy in this country has expanded despite four wars. And only those unfamiliar with what has taken place in Great Britain since September, 1939, will deny that Eng­land is more democratic today than she has ever been.—JUSTICE FRANKFURTER
    

18. My boy, about 75 years ago I learned that I was not God. And so, when the people of the various states want to do something and I can't find anything in the Constitution expressly forbidding them to do it, I say, whether I like it or not: Damn it, let 'em do it!—SUPREME COURT JUSTICE HOLMES to Justice Stone, in reference to the function of the Supreme Court.
    

19. Democracy has its own capacity for tyranny. Some of the most menacing encroachments upon liberty invoke the democratic principle and assert the right of the majority to rule. Shall not the people—that is, the majority—have their heart's desire? There is no gainsaying this in the long run, and our only real protection is that it will not be their heart's desire to sweep away our cherished traditions of personal liberty. The interests of liberty are peculiarly those of individuals, and hence of minorities, and freedom is in danger of being slain at her own altars if the passion for uniformity and control of opinion gathers head.—CHARLES EVANS, HUGHES
    

20. Democracy has not failed; the intelligence of the race has failed before the problems the race has raised.—ROBERT M. HUTCHINS
    

21. The most crying need in the humbler ranks of life is that they should be allowed some part in the direction of public affairs. That is what will develop their faculties and intelligence and self-respect.—IBSEN, An Enemy of the People
    

22. We sit around in our shops denouncing the present order but we perceive that even badly constituted democracies are responsible for fewer disasters than are oligarchies.—SOCRATES
    

23. Democracy is ever eager for rapid progress, and the only progress which can be rapid is progress down hill.—SIR JAMES JEANS
    

24. The spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will be­come corrupt, our people careless. A single zealot may become persecutor, and better men be his victims. It can never be too often repeated that the time for fixing essential rights, on a legal basis, is while our rulers are honest, ourselves united.—JEFFERSON, (written during Revolutionary war)
    

25. Tyranny and oppression are just as possible under democratic forms as under any other. We are slow to realize that democracy is a life and involves continual struggle. It is only as those of every generation who love democracy resist with all their might the encroachments of its enemies that the ideals of representative government can even be nearly approximated.—ROBERT M. LAFOLLETTE, Autobiography
    

26. At the historical stage we have reached, the will of the people is unable to use the institutions of capitalist democracy for democratic purposes. For at this stage democracy needs to transform class relations in order to affirm itself ; and it will not be allowed to do so by the owning class if it is able to prevent that achievement.—HAROLD J. LASKI, I Believe
    

27. It is, indeed, true that democracy is based on the thesis that no man is indispensable; therein lies one of its most vital differences from a dictatorial regime, which usually finds insoluble the problem of the succession to the dictator.—HAROLD J. LASKI, The American Presidency
    

28. On the whole, with scandalous exceptions, Democracy's given the ordinary worker more dignity than he ever had.—SINCLAIR LEWIS, It Can't Happen Here
    

29. As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.—LINCOLN

30. Democ'acy gives every man
    A right to be his own oppressor.—LOWELL, Biglow Papers
    

31. To one that advised him to set up a democracy in Sparta, "Pray," said Lycurgus, "do you first set up a democracy in your own house."—PLUTARCH, Lycurgus
    

32. Thus our democracy was from an early period the most aristocratic, and our aristocracy the most democratic.—MACAULAY, History
    

33. I believe that American liberalism must become more liberal, not less liberal, as the danger in Europe becomes more acute. I believe that American democracy must invent and continually reinvent its democracy; that it must attack not defend.—ARCHIBALD MACLEISH, A Time to Speak
    

34. It is the nature of liberalism to ask questions and not to answer them.—ARCHIBALD MACLEISH, A Time to Speak
    

35. We must define democracy as that form of government and of society which is inspired above every other, with the feeling and consciousness of the dignity of man.—THOMAS MANN, The Coming Victory of Democracy
    

36. Democracy's resources of vitality and youthfulness cannot be overestimated; in comparison, the youthful insolence of fascism is a mere grimace.—THOMAS MANN, The Coming Victory of Democracy
    

37. Democracy is liberty plus economic security. We Americans want to pray, think as we please—and eat regular.—MAURY MAVERICK
    

38. Who's over him, he cries—aye, he would be a democrat to all above; look, how he lords it over all below!—HERMAN MELVILLE, Moby Dick
    

39. Democracy is a kingless regime infested by many kings who are sometimes more exclusive, tyrannical, and destructive than one, if he be a tyrant.—MUSSOLINI, Fascism
    

40. A democracy,—that is a government of all the people, by all the people, far all the people; of course, a government of the principles of eternal justice, the unchanging law of God; for shortness' sake I will call it the idea of Freedom.—THEODORE PARKER, The American Idea
    

41. Democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.—PLATO, The Republic
    

42. We do not distrust the future of essential democracy.—FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, First Inaugural Address
    

43. Not only our future economic soundness but the very soundness of our democratic institutions depends on the determination of our Govern­ment to give employment to idle men. The people of America are in agreement in defending their liberties at any cost, and the first line of that defense lies in the protection of economic security. Your Government, seeking to protect democracy, must prove that Government is stronger than the forces of business depression.—FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, Radio Address, April 14, 1938
    

44. Democracy, as you know it, is seldom more than a long word beginning with a capital letter, which we accept reverently or disparage con­temptuously without asking any questions.—BERNARD SHAW, The Apple Cart: Preface
    

45. No democratic form of government can last unless its power springs directly from the majority rule of all the people governed.—ALFRED E. SMITH, Progressive Democracy
    

46. The Republican form of government is the highest form of government; but because of this it requires the highest type of human nature—a type nowhere at present existing.—HERBERT SPENCER, The Americans
    

47. No one can be perfectly free till all are free ; no one can be perfectly moral till all are happy.—HERBERT SPENCER, The Evanescence of Evil
    

48. If the damned fools want to go to hell it's not our duty to stop them, if that's what they want to do.—Attr. to CHIEF JUSTICE STONE, in reference to the function of the Supreme Court.
    

49. The more democratic a people is the more it respects the minority and requires a government to explain policies to the people before committing them, and the more important the issue the more vigilant is its public opinion.—CLARENCE STREIT, Union Now
    

50. Democracy is unfinished business, not fulfilment; it is a process of always advancing toward fulfilment.—RAYMOND GRAM SWING
    

51. Democracy is not saved by weakness and incompetence. Democracy is saved by a powerful popular will.—DOROTHY THOMPSON, On the Record
    

52. Because in the administration it bath respect not to the few but to the multitude, our form of government is called a democracy. Wherein there is not only an equality amongst all men in point of law for their private controversies, but in election to public offices we consider neither class nor rank, but each man is preferred according to his virtue or to the esteem in which he is held for some special excellence; nor is any one put back even through poverty, because of the obscurity of his person, so long as he can do good service to the commonwealth.—THUCYDIDES, History
    

53. In this hour of worldwide crisis, it is time for the men of science to act. It is time for them to band together to spread far and wide the truth about the genetic basis of democracy, and to work together for a better environment so that our political democracy and scientific freedom may survive.—HENRY A. WALLACE, The Time to Act
    

54. A federation of all humanity, together with a sufficient measure of social justice to ensure health, education, and a rough equality of opportunity, would mean such a release and increase of human energy as to open a new phase in human history.—H. G. WELLS, The Outline of History
    

55. Did you, too, O friend, suppose democracy was only for elections, for politics, and for a party name? I say democracy is only of use there that it may pass on and come to its flower and fruit in manners, in the highest forms of interaction between men, and their beliefs—in religion, literature, colleges, and schools—democracy in all public and private life, and in the army and navy.—WALT WHITMAN, Democratic Vistas
    

56. Political democracy, as it exists and practically works in America, with all its threatening evils, supplies a training-school for making first-class men. It is life's gymnasium, not of good only, but of all.—WALT WHITMAN, Democratic Vistas
    

57. Sail, sail thy best, ship of Democracy.
    Of value is thy f reight, 'tis not the Present only,
    The Past is also stored in thee.—WALT WHITMAN, Thou Mother with Thy Equal
    Brood
    

58. Thunder on! Stride on! Democracy. Strike with vengeful strokes.—WALT WHITMAN, Drum-Taps
    

59. I believe in Democracy because it releases the energies of every human being.—WOODROW WILSON
    

60. The world must be made safe for democracy.—WOODROW WILSON
    

61. Democracy is, in its essence, the way of living, organising ourselves, training and, if necessary, fighting; that includes voluntary, understood and thinking discipline, and methods of work based on elasticity, initiative and independence.—TOM WINTRINGHAM, New Ways of War
    

62. This "new" deal, having lived in the human heart two thousand five hundred years, finally founded this great Union of States. An experiment. If the "Experiment" is to succeed this union must now turn from centralization that was monarchic to the segregation and integration that is democratic. That means to turn toward the greater f reeddm of a life for the individual as individual, based squarely with the ground.—FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT, The Disappearing City