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I am opposed to pure democracy precisely because I am a liberal.

— Gaetano Mosca

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Democracy

More quotes by Gaetano Mosca

Invariably underlying all such tendencies is the concept that was so aptly phrased by Rousseau, that man is good by nature but spoiled by society and civilization.

When we say that the voters “choose” their representative, we are using a language that is very inexact.

So the state crashes at the first appreciable shock from the outside foe.

If tolerance is taken to the point where it tolerates the destruction of those same principles that made tolerance possible in the first place, it becomes intolerable.

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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: Gaetano Mosca (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.