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Democracy Quotes

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Democracy Quotes

“Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.”

MeanCharacterHandsPoliticalValuesPeaceSidesCommunityFreedomPowerfulMoralPowerVirtueDemocracyHonestyIntegrityConflictEthicsInequalityPowerlessWashingPowerlessnessNeutralityPedagogyPedagogy Of The OppressedPraxisCommunity Action
Book:The Politics of Education: Culture, Power, and Liberation
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“The modern world is reversing the old virtues of authority. They aimed deliberately to make men unworldly. They did not aim to found society on a full use of the earth's resources; they did not aim to use the whole nature of man; they did not intend him to think out the full expression of his desires. Democracy is a turning point upon those ideals in a pursuit, at first unconsciously, of the richest life that men can devise for themselves.”

ThinkingMenWorldFirstsWholeUseEarthDesireFoundVirtueDemocracyModernExpressionAuthorityResourcesIdealsAimPursuitModern WorldTurning PointsNature Of Man
Author:Walter Lippmann
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“Interactivity has the virtue of democracy, conferring upon everyone with access to a computer the right and opportunity to be heard, but it's also saddled with democracy's vice - a tendency to assume that everyone who has a right to be heard has something to say that's worth hearing.”

OpportunityVirtueDemocracyHeardComputerAssumingVicesHearingAccessTendencies
Book:Sleeping with Extra-terrestrials: The Rise of Irrationalism and Perils of Piety
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“Just as a royal rule, if not a mere name, must exist by virtue of some great personal superiority in the king, so tyranny, which is the worst of governments, is necessarily the farthest removed from a well-constituted form; oligarchy is little better, for it is a long way from aristocracy, and democracy is the most tolerable of the three.”

IfsWayWellsLittlesLongGovernmentFormThreeNamesVirtueDemocracyWorstKingsMereTyrannySuperiorityRoyalLong WayAristocracyTolerableOligarchyGreat Person
Book:The Essential Aristotle
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“Neither should we forget the mean, which at the present day is lost sight of in perverted forms of government; for many practices which appear to be democratical are the ruin of democracies, . . Those who think that all virtue is to be found in their own party principles push matters to extremes; they do not consider that disproportion destroys a state.”

ThinkingShouldMeanMatterStatesGovernmentFormFoundLostForgetPartyPrinciplesPracticeVirtueDemocracySightExtremesRuinsForms Of GovernmentPresent Day
Book:Politics
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“Republics demanded virtue. Monarchies could rely on coercion and "dazzling splendor" to suppress self-interest or factions; republics relied on the goodness of the people to put aside private interest for public good. The imperatives of virtue attached all sorts of desiderata to the republican citizen: simplicity, frugality, sobriety, simple manners, Christian benevolence, duty to the polity. Republics called on other virtues--spiritedness, courage--to protect the polity from external threats. Tyrants kept standing armies; republics relied on free yeomen, defending their own land.”

PeopleSelfChristianInterestSimpleVirtueDemocracyLandDutyCitizensRepublicanProtectGoodnessStandingArmyThreatSimplicityMannersRelyRepublicTyrantsImperativesSelf InterestMonarchyCoercionBenevolenceSplendorSobrietyFactionsDazzlingFrugalityPublic GoodYeoman
Author:James Monroe
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“[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.”

MenGovernmentEyeWealthAbilityPleasureLibertyMoralVirtueDemocracyIntellectualPropertyWitEvery ManCrueltyReputationSecureAnarchyProperty RightsDegeneratesMouldWantonCapriciousSubordinationMoral Virtues
Author:John Adams
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“[The World Trade Center and the Pentagon] have drawn, like gathered lightning, the anger of the enemies of civilization. Those enemies are always out there.... Americans are slow to anger but mighty when angry, and their proper anger now should be alloyed with pride. They are targets because of their virtues-principally democracy, and loyalty to those nations which, like Israel, are embattled salients of our virtues in a still-dangerous world.”

WorldShouldStillsNationsEnemyVirtueDemocracyDangerousPrideCivilizationAngryTradeIsraelLoyaltyTargetLightningPentagonWorld TradeWorld Trade CenterDangerous World
Author:George Will
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