Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quote Share via Email Print this Page [81-100] of 355 Democracy quotesDemocracy QuotesDemocracy Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes The tendency of democracies is, in all things, to mediocrity.~ James Fenimore Cooper Democracy consists of choosing your dictators, after they've told you what you think it is you want to hear.~ Alan Corenk We consistently have adhered to the principle that the will of the people is the paramount consideration. Our goal today…[is] to reach the result that reflects the will of the voters…. The laws are intended to facilitate and safeguard the right of each voter to express his or her will in the context of our representative democracy. Technical statutory requirements must not be exalted over the substance of this right.~ Florida Supreme Court Democracy needs more free speech for even the speech of foolish people is valuable if it serves to guarantee the right of the wise to talk.~ David Cushman Coyle Get all the fools on your side and you can be elected to anything.~ Frank Dane When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; I'm beginning to believe it.~ Clarence S. Darrow Neither current events nor history show that the majority rule, or ever did rule.~ Jefferson Davis Having gathered all power to itself, [the State] has become the sole focus of all conflict, and it must construct totalitarian defences to match its total exposure.~ Anthony de Jasay People who live in states have as a rule never experienced the state of nature and vice-versa, and have no practical possibility of moving from the one to the other ... On what grounds, then, do people form hypotheses about the relative merits of state and state of nature? ... My contention here is that preferences for political arrangements of society are to a large extent produced by these very arrangements, so that political institutions are either addictive like some drugs, or allergy-inducing like some others, or both, for they may be one thing for some people and the other for others.~ Anthony de Jasay Democracy, then, in the centralizing, pattern-making, absolutist shape which we have given to it is, it is clear, the time of tyranny's incubation.~ Bertrand de Jouvenel He is free who knows how to keep in his own hand the power to decide, at each step, the course of his life, and who lives in a society which does not block the exercise of that power.~ Salvador de Madariaga The evil of democracy is not the triumph of quantity, but the triumph of bad quality.~ Guido De Ruggiero True, it is evil that a single man should crush the herd, but see not there the worse form of slavery, which is when the herd crushes out the man.~ Antoine De Saint-Exupery If it be admitted that a man, possessing absolute power, may misuse that power by wronging his adversaries, why should a majority not be liable to the same reproach? Men are not apt to change their character by agglomeration; nor does their patience in the presence of obstacles increase with the consciousness of their strength. And for these reasons I can never willingly invest any number of my fellow creatures with that unlimited authority which I should refuse to any one of them.~ Alexis de Tocqueville [T]he main evil of the present democratic institutions of the united states does not raise, as is often asserted in Europe, from their weakness, but from their irresistible strength. I am not so much alarmed at the excessive liberty which reigns in that country as at the inadequate securities which one finds there against tyranny.~ Alexis De Tocqueville Quand donc je refuse d'obéir à une loi injuste, je ne dénie point à la majorité le droit de commander; j'en appelle seulement de la souveraineté du peuple à la souveraineté du genre humain. Il y a des gens qui n'ont pas craint de dire qu'un peuple, dans les objets qui n'intéressaient que lui-même, ne pouvait sortir entièrement des limites de la justice et de la raison, et qu'ainsi on ne devait pas craindre de donner tout pouvoir à la majorité qui le représente. Mais c'est là un langage d'esclave.~ Alexis de Tocqueville [Some people] have a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to lower the powerful to their own level, and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom. I believe that it is easier to establish an absolute and despotic government amongst a people in which the conditions of society are equal, than amongst any other; and I think that, if such a government were once established amongst such a people, it would not only oppress men, but would eventually strip each of them of several of the highest qualities of humanity. Despotism, therefore, appears to me peculiarly to be dreaded in democratic times.~ Alexis de Tocqueville In order to enjoy the inestimable benefits that the liberty of the press ensures, it is necessary to submit to the inevitable evils it creates…~ Alexis de Tocqueville All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it.~ Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.~ Alexis de Tocqueville Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print