“There is, indeed, a most dangerous passage in the history of a democratic people. When the taste for physical gratifications among them has grown more rapidly than their education and their experience of free institutions, the time will come when men are carried away and lose all self-restraint at the sight of new possessions they are about to obtain. In their intense and exclusive anxiety to make a fortune they lose sight of the close connection that exists between the private fortune of each and the prosperity of all.” PeopleMenSelfLosesDangerousTasteAnxietyConnectionsSightInstitutionsFortuneDemocraticProsperityPossessionIntensePassagesConsumerismRestraintExclusiveGratificationOverconsumptionCarried AwaySelf Restraint Author:Alexis de Tocqueville
“In our democratic culture people often think it is threatening to judge another person's taste. Some are even offended by the suggestion that there is a difference between good and bad taste, or that it matters what you look at or read or listen to.” PeopleThinkingLooksPersonsMatterCultureDifferencesJudgingTasteDemocraticSuggestionsThreateningOffendedGood And BadBad Taste Author:Roger Scruton
“In a new issue of Esquire magazine, they revealed that before he was married to Teresa Heinz, Senator John Kerry dated Morgan Fairchild, Michelle Phillips, Catherine Oxenberg and Dana Delany. Finally a Democratic presidential candidate with good taste in women.” IssuesTasteMarriedDemocraticMagazinesPresidentialCandidatesSenatorsGood TasteJohn KerryPresidential CandidateTeresa Author:Jay Leno
“Democracy encourages a taste for physical gratification; this taste, if it becomes excessive, soon disposes men to believe that all is matter only; and materialism, in its turn, hurries them on with mad impatience to these same delights; such is the fatal circle within which democratic nations are driven round. It were well that they should see the danger and hold back.” IfsMenShouldBelieveWellsMatterTurnsNationsDemocracyDangerTasteMadDemocraticRoundsDelightDrivenCirclesMaterialismConsumerismGratificationImpatienceOverconsumption Book:Democracy in America - Vol. I. and II. Source: Democracy in America - Vol. I. and II.
“If Robert Heinlein is more to your taste than George Lucas: “If you are part of a society that votes, then do so. There may be no candidates and no measures you want to vote for, but there are certain to be ones you want to vote against.” That’s certainly true of me. Over my lifetime, the Republican Party has done far more to repulse me than the Democratic Party has done to appeal to me. But the result in the voting booth would be about the same either way.” IfsWayWantMayDoneWould BeCertainResultsPartyRepublicanTasteVoteDemocraticLifetimeAppealsCandidatesVotingRepublican PartyDemocratic PartyRobert Heinlein Author:Kevin Drum
“My tastes are aristocratic, my actions democratic.” ActionTasteDemocraticAristocratic Author:Victor Hugo
“The taste which men have for liberty and that which they feel for equality are, in fact, two different things...among democratic nations they are two unequal things.” MenFeelsTwoDifferentFactsNationsLibertyTasteDemocraticDifferent ThingsTwo Different Things Author:Alexis de Tocqueville
“Why I find Louis Brandeis so exciting and inspiring because he's teaching us - good legal writing is not a matter of taste, it's a matter of connection with fellow citizens and of democratic education.” WritingMatterTeachingCitizensTasteConnectionsExcitingFellowsDemocraticLouis Brandeis Author:Jeffrey Rosen