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Democracy Quotes

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Democracy Quotes

“Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.”

Men Political Politics Freedom Democracy Philosophical Property Rulers Democracies Have Voting And Democracy Democracy Freedom

Book:Aristotle: The Politics and the Constitution of Athens

Source: Aristotle: The Politics and the Constitution of Athens

“In the South, prior to the Civil Rights movement and the 1964 Civil Rights Act, democracy was the rule. The majority of people were white, and the white majority had little or no respect for any rights which the black minority had relative to property, or even to their own lives. The majority - the mob and occasionally the lynch mob - ruled.”

People Littles Black White Democracy Rights Movement Civilization Majority Property South Civil Rights Minorities Relative Civil Rights Movement No Respect Civil Rights Act

Book:The Terrible Truth about Liberals

Source: The Terrible Truth about Liberals

“There is a reason for the affected profession of " anarchist sympathies" among Tories and grandees, and of " libertarian principles" by Hobbesian yahoos of the right. Among the former, one sees the upholding of the view that a gentleman's business and property are his own, and none of the government's. Among the latter, a distaste for democracy, for taxation, and for the need to consult others about the planet.”

Needs Reason Government Views Principles Democracy Planets Property Libertarian Profession Former Gentleman Latter Affected Taxation Anarchist Distaste

Book:For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports

Source: For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports

“For the mass of men the idea of artistic creation can only be expressed by an idea unpopular in present discussions - the idea of property... Property is merely the art of the democracy... One would think, to hear people talk, that the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers were on the side of property. But obviously they are the enemies of property; because they are enemies of their own limitations.”

People Thinking Men Art Ideas Politics Sides Enemy Economy Democracy Creation Mass Property Artistic Limitation Discussion Liberalism Artistic Creation

Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton

“The dissolution of society bids fair to become the termination of a career of which property is the end and aim, because such a career contains the elements of self-destruction. Democracy in government, brotherhood in society, equality in rights and privileges, and universal education, foreshadow the next higher plane of society to which experience, intelligence and knowledge are steadily tending.”

Source: The Indian Journals, 1859-62

“So many of the new nations which were established as democracies after the second world war, during the decolonizing process, have now changed their system to state-socialism. Small elites run them, and they aren't sharing societies. They aren't even socialist. The power of the state has been merged with business property and you have the greatest concentration of power that's possible.”

“A democracy flirts with the danger of becoming a slave in direct ratio to the numbers of its citizens who work, but do not own / or who own, but do not work; or who distribute, as politicians do, but do not produce. The danger of the "slave state" disappears in ratio to the numbers of people who own property and admit its attendant responsibilities under God. They can call their souls their own because they own and administer something other than their souls. Thus they are free.”

People Soul States Wisdom Politics Numbers Responsibility Economy Democracy Danger Produce Becoming Citizens Politician Direct Property Slave Disappear Liberalism Flirting Ratios

Author:Fulton J. Sheen

“A father of the church said that property was theft, many centuries before Proudhon was born. Bourdaloue reaffirmed it. Montesquieu was the inventor of national workshops and of the theory that the state owed every man a living. Nay, was not the church herself the first organized democracy?”

Men Firsts Said States Father Born Church Democracy Century Theory Property Every Man Organized Theft Inventor Workshops Montesquieu

Book:Books and Libraries: Democracy, and Other Papers

Source: Books and Libraries: Democracy, and Other Papers

“A State, in idea, is the opposite of a Church. A State regards classes, and not individuals; and it estimates classes, not by internal merit, but external accidents, as property, birth, etc. But a church does the reverse of this, and disregards all external accidents, and looks at men as individual persons, allowing no gradations of ranks, but such as greater or less wisdom, learning, and holiness ought to confer. A Church is, therefore, in idea, the only pure democracy.”

Source: Golden Hours with Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“Jail is just another micro-society. It just happens that here, the problems are far more out in the open, we don't live with the facades of lies that democracy or capitalism creates for us.”

Problem Reality Happens Lying Politics Community Money Class Democracy Policy Wall Taxes Capitalism Trade Property Human Rights Ideology Jail Free Speech Consumerism Facade Partisanship

Author:Cecily McMillan

“I have not the smallest doubt that, if we had a purely democratic government here, the effect would be the same. Either the poor would plunder the rich, and civilisation would perish; or order and property would be saved by a strong military government, and liberty would perish.”

Ifs Government Would Be Order Strong Poor Liberty Democracy Rich Doubt Effects Military Property Democratic Saved Smallest Civilisation Plunder Democratic Government

Author:Thomas B. Macaulay

“Thus, experience has ever shown, that education, as well as religion, aristocracy, as well as democracy and monarchy, are, singly, totally inadequate to the business of restraining the passions of men, of preserving a steady government, and protecting the lives, liberties, and properties of the people . . . . Religion, superstition, oaths, education, laws, all give way before passions, interest, and power, which can be resisted only by passions, interest, and power.”

People Men Way Giving Wells Government Law Passion Interest Liberty Democracy Human Nature Property Steady Superstitions Monarchy Oath Inadequate Aristocracy Restraining

Author:John Adams

“[D]emocracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man's life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable cruelty of one or a very few.”

“Shall we have recourse to the art of printing? But this has not destroyed property or aristocracy or corporations or paper wealth in England or America, or diminished the influence of either; on the contrary, it has multiplied aristocracy and diminished democracy.”

Art America Wealth Democracy Influence Paper England Property Contrary Destroyed Corporations Printing Aristocracy Recourse

Book:The Political Writings of John Adams

Source: The Political Writings of John Adams

“Civil rights, as we may remember, are reducible to three primary heads; the right of personal security; the right of personal liberty; and the right of private property. In a state of slavery, the two last are wholly abolished, the person of the slave being at the absolute disposal of his master; and property, what he is incapable, in that state, either of acquiring, or holding, in his own use. Hence, it will appear how perfectly irreconcilable a state of slavery is to the principles of a democracy, which form the basis and foundation of our government.”

Source: A Dissertation on Slavery: With a Proposal for the Gradual Abolition of it in the State of Virginia

“Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.”

Source: The Fœderalist: A Collection of Essays, Written in Favor of the New Constitution, as Agreed Upon by the Fœderal Convention, September 17, 1787. Reprinted from the Original Text. With an Historical Introduction and Notes

“It is not enough to merely defend democracy. To defend it may be to lose it; to extend it is to strengthen it. Democracy is not property; it is an idea.”

May Ideas Enough Loses Democracy Property

Author:Hubert H. Humphrey

“I want a capital-earning democracy. Every man and woman a capitalist. Housing is the start. If you're a man or woman of property, you've got something. So every man a capitalist, and every man a man of property.”

Ifs Men Want Democracy Men And Women Capitalism Property Every Man Capitalist Earning Housing

Author:Margaret Thatcher

“The kind of capitalism we are seeing today under this expansion of property into living resources is a whole, new, different phase of capitalism. It is totally inconsistent with democracy as well as with sustainability. What we have is capital working on a global scale, totally uprooted, with accountability nowhere, with responsibility nowhere, and with rights everywhere. This new capital, with absolute freedom and no accountability, is structurally anti-life, anti-freedom.”

“[James] Madison pointed out in the discussion of the constitutional debates - the constitutional convention - that democracy would be a danger. He used England of course as the model and said suppose that in England everyone had the free right to vote; the poor, the propertyless - who are the great majority - would use their voting power to take away the rights of property owners to carry out what we would call land reform.”