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The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy. The people do not want virtue, but are the dupes of pretended patriots.

— Elbridge Gerry

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Democracy

More quotes by Elbridge Gerry

A standing army is like a standing member. It's an excellent assurance of domestic tranquility, but a dangerous temptation to foreign adventure.

Constitutional Convention (1787)

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