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

— Gustave Flaubert

Tout le rêve de la démocratie est d'élever le prolétaire au niveau de bêtise du bourgeois.

Original text (French)

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Democracy

More quotes by Gustave Flaubert

Nothing is more humiliating than to see idiots succeed in enterprises we have failed in.

Sentimental Education (1869)

One becomes a critic when one cannot be an artist, just as a man becomes a stool pigeon when he cannot be a soldier.

What is beautiful is moral, that is all there is to it.

An author in his book must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere.

One must not always think that feeling is everything. Art is nothing without form.

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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)

Fear and destructiveness are the major emotional sources of fascism, eros belongs mainly to democracy.

Theodor Adorno The Authoritarian Personality (1950)

Attribution

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