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The foundation of democracy is the sense of spiritual independence which nerves the individual to stand alone against the powers of this world.

— R. H. Tawney Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (1926)

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Democracy

More quotes by R. H. Tawney

Freedom for the pike is death for the minnows.

It is probable that democracy owes more to Nonconformity than to any other single movement.

Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (1926)

A right should not be absolute for the same reason that a power should not be absolute.

The Acquisitive Society (1920)

The certainties of one age are the problems of the next.

Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (1926)

One of the uses of industry is to provide the wealth which may make possible better education.

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