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The fabric of democracy is always fragile everywhere because it depends on the will of citizens to protect it, and when they become scared, when it becomes dangerous for them to defend it, it can go very quickly.

— Margaret Atwood The Progressive interview (2010)

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Democracy

More quotes by Margaret Atwood

The Eskimo has fifty-two names for snow because it is important to them; there ought to be as many for love.

Surfacing (1972)

I would rather dance as a ballerina, though faultily, than as a flawless clown.

Lady Oracle (1976)

Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.

The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)

War is what happens when language fails.

The Robber Bride (1993)

Time is not a line but a dimension, like the dimensions of space.

Cat's Eye (1988)

All Margaret Atwood quotes →

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Democracy is the wholesome and pure air without which a socialist public organization cannot live a full-blooded life.

Mikhail Gorbachev

The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them in parliament!

Vladimir Lenin The State and Revolution (1917)

The law itself is the instrument of the ruling class; hence it is a logical impossibility for another class to assume power legally.

Oliver Cox Caste, Class, and Race: A Study in Social Dynamics (1948)

The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of bourgeois stupidity.

Gustave Flaubert

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Margaret Atwood (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.