Democracy | Some revealing quotes

"Politicians are not born; they are excreted." Cicero

"Freedom to speak... can be maintained only by promoting debate." Walter Lippmann

"The justification of majority rule in politics is not to be found in its ethical superiority." Walter Lippmann

"Any politician who can be elected only by turning Americans against other Americans is too dangerous to be elected." Thomas Sowell

"You don't have to be satisfied with America as you find it. You can change it. I didn't like the way I found America some sixty years ago, and I've been trying to change it ever since." Upton Sinclair

"Democracy is a constant tension between truth and half-truth and, in the arsenal of truth, there is no greater weapon than fact." Lyndon Johnson

"In a democracy, in a functioning democracy, what would be happening is that popular organizations, unions, political groupings, others would be developing their programs, putting them forth, insisting that their representatives implement those programs." Noam Chomsky

"I take a grave view of the press. It is the weak slat under the bed of democracy." A. J. Liebling

"If you ask the government to impose morality, then moral questions will be decided by whoever has the most political power." Harry Browne

"The relative freedom which we enjoy depends of public opinion. The law is no protection. Governments make laws, but whether they are carried out, and how the police behave, depends on the general temper in the country. If large numbers of people are interested in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it; if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them." George Orwell

"Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good." H. L. Mencken

"A public library is the most democratic thing in the world. What can be found there has undone dictators and tyrants." Doris Lessing

"Who wants good people in government? Good people should be in the private sector. Helping us out, helping themselves out in the private sector. We want schmoes in government. We want people who can't find the doorknob. Why waste productive people, as well as looting the taxpayer?" Murray Rothbard

"Neoliberal democracy. Instead of citizens, it produces consumers. Instead of communities, it produces shopping malls. The net result is an atomized society of disengaged individuals who feel demoralized and socially powerless. In sum, neoliberalism is the immediate and foremost enemy of genuine participatory democracy, not just in the United States but across the planet, and will be for the foreseeable future." Noam Chomsky