Democracy | Some revealing quotes

"All politics, under democracy, resolves itself into a series of dynastic questions: the objective is always the job, not the principle." H. L. Mencken

"Voting is the next-to-last refuge of the politically impotent. The last refuge, of course, is giving your opinion to a pollster." Neil Postman

"One of the necessary accompaniments of capitalism in a democracy is political corruption." Upton Sinclair

"Politics is the choice between the lesser of two evils." George Orwell

"The totalitarian states can do great things, but there is one thing they cannot do: they cannot give the factory-worker a rifle and tell him to take it home and keep it in his bedroom. That rifle, hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or laborer's cottage, is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there." George Orwell

"Democratic politicians want to solve the crisis of poor education by taking more of your money and using it to reduce classroom sizes in the government schools. Republican politicians want to solve the crisis by taking more of your money to provide vouchers to a handful of the poorest students in each area, paying for a part of the tuition expense at private schools. But before long this 'reform' would make those private schools indistinguishable from the government schools ... Vouchers are an excellent way for the government to increase control over private schools." Harry Browne

"Politics: “Poli” a Latin word meaning “many” and “tics” meaning “bloodsucking creatures”." Myron Coureval Fagan

"An Honest politician will not be tolerated by a democracy unless he is very stupid ... because only a very stupid man can honestly share the prejudices of more than half the nation." Bertrand Russell

"The people who, in order to enjoy the liberty which suites them, resort to the representative system, must exercise an active and constant surveillance over their representatives, and reserve for themselves...the right to discard them if they betray their trust, and to revoke the powers which them might have abused." Benjamin Constant

"If a political party does not have its foundation in the determination to advance a cause that is right and that is moral, then it is not a political party; it is merely a conspiracy to seize power." Eisenhower

"There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat." Gore Vidal

"It is the political task of the social scientist — as of any liberal educator — continually to translate personal troubles into public issues, and public issues into the terms of their human meaning for a variety of individuals. It is his task to display in his work — and, as an educator, in his life as well — this kind of sociological imagination. And it is his purpose to cultivate such habits of mind among the men and women who are publicly exposed to him. To secure these ends is to secure reason and individuality, and to make these the predominant values of a democratic society." Charles Wright Mills

"The test of a government is not how popular it is with the powerful and privileged few but how honestly and fairly it deals with the many who must depend on it." Jimmy Carter

"All I want is the same thing you want. To have a nation with a government that is as good and honest and decent and competent and compassionate and as filled with love as are the American people." Jimmy Carter