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Democracy Quotes

Barack Obama and the Nigerian president Bola Tinubu have the most entries, with H. L. Mencken and Franklin Roosevelt behind them, so a lot of the page is speeches. For the dry material go to Mencken in Smart Set (1910), who called democracy the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard; Shaw’s Maxims for Revolutionists (1903), on election by the incompetent many instead of appointment by the corrupt few; and Disraeli’s Lothair (1870).

“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch” is credited to Benjamin Franklin and flagged misattributed. The earliest version in the notes is a Usenet post from 23 April 1990. The line that democracy is the most vile form of government, credited to Madison, is flagged too.

Random quote on Democracy

Most quoted on democracy:

True democracy consists not in lowering the standard but in giving everybody, so far as possible, a chance of measuring up to the standard.

Irving Babbitt English and the Discipline of Ideas (1920)

Socialism without democracy is pseudo-socialism, just as democracy without socialism is pseudo-democracy.

Wilhelm Liebknecht

Democracy don’t rule the world,/You’d better get that in your head,/This world is ruled by violence,/But I guess that’s better left unsaid.

Bob Dylan

One does not export democracy in an armored vehicle.

Jacques Chirac

Never be deceived that the rich will allow you to vote away their wealth.

Lucy Parsons

Eternal vigilance. Remember, no one said democracy would be easy.

John Dean Authoritarian Nightmare (2020)

Perhaps the most important requirement in an election is that voters have a choice. It sounds trivial, but that is something that has been lacking in most Russian elections held under Vladimir Putin’s rule.

Vladimir Vladimirovich Kara-Murza

Democracy has nothing to do with freedom. Democracy is a soft variant of communism, and rarely in the history of ideas has it been taken for anything else.

Hans-Hermann Hoppe

Democracy is the art of cheerfully pulling the wool over the eyes of the people, and doing so in their name.

Karlheinz Deschner

Tonight, as I see the drama of democracy unfolding around the globe, perhaps—perhaps we are closer to that new world than ever before.

George H. W. Bush

You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists.

Abbie Hoffman

I believe in Democracy because it releases the energies of every human being.

Woodrow Wilson

Money, money, always money — that is the essence of democracy. Democracy is more expensive than monarchy; it is incompatible with liberty.

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates.

Gore Vidal A View from the Diner's Club (1991)

I consider biennial elections as a security that the sober, second thought of the people shall be law.

Fisher Ames

Human affairs have scarcely ever been so happily constituted as that the better course pleased the greater number. Hence the private vices of the multitude have generally resulted in public error.

John Calvin

An electoral choice of ten different fascists is like choosing which way one wishes to die. The holder of so-called high public office is always merely an extension of the hated ruling corporate class.

George Jackson Blood in My Eye (1971)

The margin is narrow, but the responsibility is clear.

John F. Kennedy

The ship of Democracy, which has weathered all storms, may sink through the mutiny of those aboard.

Grover Cleveland The American Mercury (1961)

We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.

Louis Brandeis

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