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PRODUCT INFORMATION |
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| Champany |
The official's heart must stand at attention
before his mind. The highest measure of democracy is
neither the 'extent of freedom' nor the 'extent of equality', but rather the
highest measure of participation. Democracy is not something you believe in
or a place to hang your hat, but it's something you do. You participate. If
you stop doing it, democracy crumbles. Elections belong to the people. It is
their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their
behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters. As I would not be a slave, so I would not
be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. The ballot is stronger than the bullet. Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if
you want to test a man's character, give him power. Democracy is the government of the people,
by the people, for the people. As a rule, dictatorships guarantee safe
streets and terror of the doorbell. In democracy the streets may be unsafe
after dark, but the most likely visitor in the early hours will be the
milkman. A free society is one where it is safe to
be unpopular. Until lions have their historians, tales
of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter. Democracy consists of choosing your
dictators, after they've told you what you think it is you want to hear. Freedom is when the people can speak,
democracy is when the government listens. Dictatorships are one-way streets.
Democracy boasts two-way traffic. Great is truth, but still greater, from a
practical point of view, is silence about truth. The people is always expressive of the
truth. The life of a people cannot be a lie. A democracy cannot exist as a permanent
form of government. It can only exist until a majority of voters discover
that they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury. Democracy does not create strong ties
between people. But it does make living together easier. The art of progress is to preserve order
amid change, and to preserve change amid order. The most common way people give up their
power is by thinking they don't have any. Conversation would be vastly improved by
the constant use of four simple words: I do not know. Intellectual freedom is the only guarantee
of a scientific - democratic approach to politics, economic development, and
culture. We must all live so that our children do
not have to pay for our deeds. Tyranny and despotism can be exercised by
many, more rigourously, more vigourously, and more severely, than by one. If liberty and equality, as is thought by
some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when
all persons alike share in the government to the utmost. Democracy is when the indigent, and not
the men of property, are the rulers. If liberty and equality are chiefly to be
found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share
in the government to the utmost. It is the mark of an educated mind to be
able to entertain a thought without accepting it. The great thing about democracy is that it
gives every voter a chance to do something stupid. The great thing about democracy is that it
gives every voter a chance to do something stupid. The wild, cruel beast is not behind the
bars of the cage. He is in front of it. Individual rights are not subject to a
public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority;
the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from
oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the That's free enterprise, friends: freedom
to gamble, freedom to lose. And the great thing -- the truly democratic
thing about it -- is that you don't even have to be a player to lose. Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting
on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote! They that can give up essential liberty to
purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety. They that can give up essential liberty to
obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Vote for the man who promises least; he'll
be the least disappointing. Those against politics are in favor of the
politics inflicted upon them. A democrat need not believe that the
majority will always reach a wise decision. He should however believe in the
necessity of accepting the decision of the majority, be it wise or unwise,
until such a time that the majority reaches another decision. A citizen of America will cross the ocean
to fight for democracy, but won't cross the street to vote in a national
election. We are usually convinced more easily by
reasons we have found ourselves than by those which have occurred to others. Democrats will play the old Washington
game of calling reductions in the rate of growth of spending for any program
a 'cut'. Those wanting to improve democracy in
their countries should not wait for permission. Democracy means decision by those
concerned. In order to become the master, the
politician poses as the servant. Since a politician never believes what he
says, he is surprised when others believe him. In a democracy everybody has a right to be
represented, including the jerks. In democracy everyone has the right to be
represented, even the jerks. He who strikes terror into others is
himself in continual fear. Democracy means government by discussion,
but it is only effective if you can stop people talking. Tyrants have not yet discovered any chains
that can fetter the mind. Democracy: In which you say what you like
and do what you're told. A fool is very dangerous when in power. It is far more honest to be undeservedly
ignored than to be honoured without merit. The more developed a nation is, the more
complete is the independence of the individual, and the safer the individual
from encroachments by another. So easily do weak men put in high
positions turn villains. Politics ought to be the part-time
profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of
free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national
heritage. Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that
more than half of the people are right more than half the time. Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that
more than half of the people are right more than half of the time. Tyrants are always assassinated too late.
That is their great excuse. Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us
nothing but the shape of the spoon. Freedom without obligation is anarchy.
Freedom with obligation is democracy. Laws, like houses, lean on one another. The people never give up their liberties
but under some delusion. General rebellions and revolts of a whole
people never were encouraged now or at any time. They are always provoked. The best weapon of a dictatorship is
secrecy; the best weapon of a democracy is openness. A patriot must always be ready to defend
his country against his government. There may be times when we are powerless
to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to
protest. Only the educated are free. He who allows oppression, shares the
crime. Fifty-one percent of a nation can
establish a totalitarian regime, suppress minorities and still remain
democratic. As long as the differences and diversities
of mankind exist, democracy must allow for compromise, for accommodation,
and for the recognition of differences. When great changes occur in history, when
great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The
minority are right. When great changes occur in history, when
great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. Democracy is based on the assumption that
a million men are wiser than one man. How's that again? I missed something. Perhaps the fact that we have seen
millions voting themselves into complete dependence on a tyrant has made our
generation understand that to choose one's government is not necessarily to
secure freedom. If men were angels, no government would be
necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal
controls on government would be necessary. It's dangerous to be right when the
government is wrong. Find out just what any people will quietly
submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong
which will be imposed upon them. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by
the endurance of those whom they oppress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and
yet depreciate agitation, are men who want rain without thunder and
lightning. Arbitrary rule has its basis, not in the
strength of the state or the chief, but in the moral weakness of the
individual, who submits almost without resistance to the domineering power. Democratic institutions form a system of
quarantine for tyrannical desires. You can never have a revolution in order
to establish democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a
revolution. In free countries, every man is entitled
to express his opinions and every other man is entitled not to listen. Only the person who does not evade
conflict and directs his efforts in keeping with the course of society's
development can be an effective leader. Politics needs a flexible mind, for it has
no immutable or eternal rules. In politics immutable or eternal rules lead
to inevitable and swift defeat. Faced with the choice between changing
one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets
busy on the proof. My notion of democracy is that under it
the weakest shall have the same opportunities as the strongest. Democracy substitutes election by the
incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. Democracy is a device that ensures we
shall be governed no better than we deserve. Democracy is a device that insures we
shall be governed no better than we deserve. The reasonable man adapts himself to the
world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself.
Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. Democracy: The substitution of election by
the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. Bad officials are elected by good citizens
who do not vote. One sharp, stern struggle, and the slaves
of centuries are free. As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will
be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members
of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil
government. It is proof of a base and low mind for one
to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is
the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a
majority of the people. A pedestal is as much a prison as any
small space. Politics is the art of looking for
trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the
wrong remedies. The job of a citizen is to keep his mouth
open. A constitutional state is like daily
bread, like water to drink and air to breath, and the best thing about
democracy is that it is the only system capable of securing the
constitutional state. The whole dream of democracy is to raise
the proletarian to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeois. Under democracy one party always devotes
its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule
- and both commonly succeed, and are right. The greatest task of democracy, its ritual
and feast - is choice. Democracy is the theory that the common
people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard. Democracy is the art of running the circus
from the monkey cage. Those who can -- do. Those who can't --
teach. Freedom of press is limited to those who
own one. Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and
at once the world becomes explicable. Under democracy one party always devotes
its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule
- and both commonly succeed, are right. Of government, at least in democratic
states, it may be said briefly that it is an agency engaged wholesale, and
as a matter of solemn duty, in the performance of acts which all
self-respecting individuals refrain from as a matter of common decency. The cure for the evils of democracy is
more democracy. The whole aim of practical politics is to
keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be lead to safety) by
menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. Government is a broker in pillage, and
every election is a sort of advance auction in stolen goods. Democracy is a pathetic belief in the
collective wisdom of individual ignorance. Say what you will about the Ten
Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are
only ten of them. Every decent man is ashamed of the
government he lives under. Hanging one scoundrel, it appears, does
not deter the next. Well, what of it? The first one is at least disposed of. Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what
stings is justice. It is hard to believe that a man is
telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place. The trouble with Communism is the
Communists, just as the trouble with Christianity is the Christians. The cosmos is a gigantic flywheel making
10,000 revolutions per minute. Man is a sick fly taking a dizzy ride on it. Faith may be defined briefly as an
illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable. In this world of sin and sorrow there is
always something to be thankful for. As for me, I rejoice that I am not a
Republican. Liberals have many tails and chase them
all. Remorse--Regret that one waited so long to
do it. Democracy is also a form of worship. It is
the worship of Jackals by Jackasses. We must respect the other fellow's
religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory
that his wife is beautiful and his children smart. Conscience is the inner voice that warns
us somebody is looking. Truth would quickly cease to become
stranger than fiction, once we got as used to it. The basic fact about human existence is
not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. Creator - A comedian whose audience is
afraid to laugh. A newspaper is a device for making the
ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier. It is the fundamental theory of all the
more recent American law...that the average citizen is half-witted, and
hence not to be trusted to either his own devices or his own thoughts. A celebrity is one who is known by many
people he is glad he doesn't know. For every complex problem, there is a
solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. Lawyer: One who protects us against
robbery by taking away the temptation. Judge: A law student who marks his own
papers. It is inaccurate to say I hate everything.
I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency.
This makes me forever ineligible for public office. A good politician is quite as unthinkable
as an honest burglar. A politician is an animal which can sit on
a fence and yet keep both ears to the ground. The argument that capital punishment
degrades the state is moonshine, for if that were true then it would degrade
the state to send men to war... The state, in truth, is degraded in its very
nature: a few butcheries cannot do it any further damage. The most common of all follies is to
believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of
mankind. A professional politician is a
professionally dishonorable man. In order to get anywhere near high office
he has to make so many compromises and submit to so many humiliations that
he becomes indistinguishable from a streetwalker. Giving every man a vote has no more made
men wise and free than Christianity has made them good. Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit
never ends. Firmness in decision is often merely a
form of stupidity. It indicates an inability to think the same thing out
twice. Truth - Something somehow discreditable to
someone. It is impossible to imagine the universe
run by a wise, just and omnipotent God, but it is quite easy to imagine it
run by a board of gods. If such a board actually exists it operates
precisely like the board of a corporation that is losing money. Under democracy one party always devotes
its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to
rule--and both commonly succeed, and are right... Wherever politics intrudes upon economic
life, political success is readily attained by saying what people like to
hear rather than what is demonstrably true. Instead of safeguarding truth
and honesty, the state then tends to become a major source of insi Democracy is based upon the conviction
that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people. Democracy cannot be forced upon a society,
neither is it a gift that can be held forever. It has to be struggled hard
for and defended everyday anew. Our democracy is but a name. We vote? What
does that mean? It means that we choose between two bodies of real, though
not avowed, autocrats. We choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. The majority is never right. Never, I tell
you! That's one of these lies in society that no free and intelligent man
can help rebelling against. Who are the people that make up the biggest
proportion of the population -- the intelligent ones or the fools? That government is best which governs
least. If...the machine of government...is of
such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another,
then, I say, break the law. A society of sheep must in time beget a
government of wolves. It is a paradox that every dictator has
climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining
power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own. Calm and order can be just as dangerous to
democracy as uneasiness and disorder. The right to be heard does not
automatically include the right to be taken seriously. Complete equality isn't compatible with
democracy, but it is a agreeable to tolitarianism. After all the only way to
ensure the equality of the slothful, the inept and the immoral is to
suppress everyone else. Liberty is the possibility of doubting,
the possibility of making a mistake, the possibility of searching and
experimenting, the possibility of saying No to any authority - literary,
artistic, philosophic, religious, social, and even political. Democracy does not guarantee equality of
conditions - it only guarantees equality of opportunity. Democracy does not guarantee equality of
conditions -- it only guarantees equality of opportunity. So many, though reluctant to admit it.
Shun clever men, and rather suffer fools. In a democracy dissent is an act of faith.
Like medicine, the test of its value is not in its taste, but in its
effects. In a democracy, dissent is an act of
faith. Democracy without morality is impossible. In a democracy the people get what the
majority deserves. Thinking of mass democracy as government
controlled by its employees helps explain the difficulty of changing
government policy. The tendency of democracies is, in all
things, to mediocrity, since the tastes, knowledge, and principles of the
majority form the tribunal of appeal. It is the besetting vice of democracies to
substitute public opinion for law. This is the usual form in which the
masses of men exhibit their tyranny. The disposition of all power is to abuses,
nor does it at all mend the matter that its possessors are a majority. Democracies have been found incompatible
with personal security or the rights of property; and in general been as
short in their lives as they have been violent in their death. The ultimate authority ... resides in the
people alone. The advancement and diffusion of knowledge
is the only guardian of true liberty. If we advert to the nature of republican
government, we shall find that the censorial power is in the people over the
government, and not in the government over the people. Democracy gives every man the right to be
his own oppressor. Democracy is the form of government that
gives every man the right to be his own oppressor. Those accept an obligation lightly who
feel lightly about letting it drop. Democracy is good. I say this because
other systems are worse. Democracy means having the choice.
Dictatorship means being given the choice. The price of the democratic way of life is
a growing appreciation of people's differences, not merely as tolerable, but
as the essence of a rich and rewarding human experience. In politics, an organized minority is a
political majority. The voice of the majority is no proof of
justice. Democracy does not race, it reaches the
finish slowly but surely. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It
soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet
that did not commit suicide. A free government is a complicated piece
of machinery, the nice and exact adjustment of whose springs, wheels, and
weights, is not yet well comprehended by the artists of the age, and still
less by the people. Any doctrine that weakens personal
responsibility for judgment and for action helps create the attitudes that
welcome and support the totalitarian state. Democracy evolves where freedom is able to
determine its own policy. Nor is the people's judgment always true:
the most may err as grossly as the few. Those who make peaceful change impossible
will make violent revolution inevitable. Those who make peaceful revolution
impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. Life in freedom is not easy, and democracy
is not perfect. Politics is the art of choosing between
the disastrous and the unpalatable. Nothing is so admirable in politics as a
short memory. The ideas of economists and political
philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more
powerful than is generally understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little
else. Anarchy is the sure consequence of
tyranny; for no power that is not limited by laws can ever be protected by
them. Democracy ... is a system of
self-determination. It's the right to make the wrong choice. Democracy encourages the majority to
decide things about which the majority is blissfully ignorant. Democracy encourages the majority to
decide things about which the majority is ignorant. If mankind minus one were of one opinion,
then mankind is no more justified in silencing the one than the one - if he
had the power - would be justified in silencing mankind. Those who suppress freedom always do so in
the name of law and order. The well being of democracies regardless
of their type and status is dependent on one small technical detail: The
right to vote. Everything else is secondary. Every nation has the government it
deserves. As scarce as truth is, the supply has
always been in excess of the demand. No man's life, liberty, or property is
safe while the legislature is in session. I personally call the type of government
which can be removed without violence 'democracy,' and the other,
'tyranny.'. It is wrong to ask who will rule. The
ability to vote a bad government out of office is enough. That is democracy. We'd all like to vote for the best man but
he's never a candidate. People despise the lust for power that
originates from a craving for homage and for the attributes of power. Democracy is a process by which the people
are free to choose the man who will get the blame. Democracy is a process by which the people
are free to choose the man who will get the blame. Human beings are perhaps never more
frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right. Not our location is important, but the
direction in which we move. Every person knows that he should do what
unites, not divides, him and other people. Governments need armies to protect them
from their enslaved and oppressed subjects. The laws of economics tell us that the
expansion of the central state can't go on forever. Its limit is reached
when the looted turn on the looters. It is bad to be oppressed by a minority,
but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority. The essence of democracy is not that
everyone makes and administers laws but that lawgivers and rulers should be
dependent on the people's will in such a way that they may be peaceably
changed if conflict occurs. In the long run the ideas of the majority,
however detrimental they may be, will carry on. The future of mankind
depends on the ability of the elite to influence public opinion in the right
direction. Despots and democratic majorities are
drunk with power. Those believing they have not voted are
mistaken, for their indifference affects all our futures. There is nothing more difficult to take in
hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to
take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. In matters of conscience, the law of
majority has no place. There is no reason to believe that there
is one law for families and another for nations. An eye for an eye makes the whole world
blind. Retaliation is counter-poison and poison
breeds more poison. The nectar of Love alone can destroy the poison of hate. I see neither bravery nor sacrifice in
destroying life or property, for offense or defense. To answer brutality with brutality is to
admit one's moral and intellectual bankruptcy. Whenever you have truth it must be given
with love, or the message and the messenger will be rejected. Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty
when the state becomes lawless or corrupt. Democracy and violence can ill go
together. Evolution of democracy is not possible if
we are not prepared to hear the other side. In true democracy every man and woman is
taught to think for himself or herself. Democracy is not a state in which people
act like sheep. The spirit of democracy cannot be
established in the midst of terrorism, whether governmental or popular. Nonviolence is not a weapon of the weak.
It is a weapon of the strongest and bravest. The force generated by nonviolence is
infinitely greater than the force of all the arms created by man's
ingenuity. A "No" uttered from deepest conviction is
better and greater than a "Yes" merely uttered to please, or what is worse,
to avoid trouble. The only tyrant I accept in this world is
the still voice within. What you do is of little significance, but
it is very important that you do it. We must become the change we want to see
in the world. The only devils in the world are those
running around in our own hearts - that is where the battle should be
fought. Performance of one's duties should be
independent of public opinion. The spirit of democracy cannot be
superimposed from the outside. It must come from within. I understand democracy as something that
gives the weak the same chance as the strong. Democracy means: Sticking to the rules of
the game, even when the referee is not looking. It is as hard for the good to suspect
evil, as it is for the bad to suspect good. Never doubt that a small group of
thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that
ever has. We adore titles and heredities in our
hearts and ridicule them with our mouths. This is our democratic privilege. Democracy is the name we give the people
whenever we need them. In actual fact those who do not care for
politics and sit on the fence do indeed side for a political party: The
ruling party. The dignity of man is in free choice. Any law which violates the indefeasible
rights of man is essentially unjust and tyrannical; it is not a law at all. Everybody's for democracy in principle.
It's only in practice that the thing gives rise to stiff objections. To feed men and not to love them is to
treat them as if they were barnyard cattle. To love them and not respect
them is to treat them as if they were household pets. The Constitution, in a very significant
sense, is not a mechanism for making decisions but preventing them. is so firmly believed as that which we
least know. Every society honors its live conformists
and its dead troublemakers. The human race has entered a stage where
we are all dependent on each other. No other country or nation should be
regarded in total separation from another, let alone pitted against another. If you are called upon to govern humans,
treat them humanely. In democracy its your vote that counts. In
feudalism its your count that votes. In democracy its your vote that counts.;
In feudalism its your count that votes. It is not only for what we do that we are
held responsible, but also for what we do not do. Whatever field of human activity one may
take, only those trends that are in harmony with the needs of society show
rapid progress. If an individual agrees with everybody, he
lacks conviction; if he likes everybody and is everybody's friend, he is
indifferent to one and all. In a democracy, the individual enjoys not
only the ultimate power but carries the ultimate responsibility. A modern democracy is a tyranny whose
borders are undefined; one discovers how far one can go only by traveling in
a straight line until one is stopped. Who's more foolish: the fool, or the fool
who follows him? I have no respect for the passion for
equality, which seems to me merely idealizing envy. Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of
the people by the people for the people. Democracy is the bludgeoning of the
people, by the people, for the people. Laws are like sausages. You sleep far
better the less you know about how they are made. Traditions are never left in peace: they
degenerate if they are not perfected. Politicians are always interested in
people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs. Washing one's hands of the conflict
between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not
to be neutral. The common people suffer when the powerful
disagree. An imbalance between rich and poor is the
oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics. Democracy is a charming form of
government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality
to equals and unequal alike. When the tyrant has disposed of foreign
enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then
he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may
require a leader. Justice will only exist where those not
effected by injustice are filled with the same amount of indignation as
those offended. The history of any nation is not only a
succession of events, but also a chain of ideas. There can be no daily democracy without
daily citizenship. Democracy becomes a government of bullies
tempered by editors. If you put a chain around the neck of a
slave, the other end fastens itself around your own. Man's capacity for justice makes democracy
possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary. Democracy feeds on argument, on the
discussion as to the right way forward. This is the reason why respecting
the opinion of others belongs to democracy. The greatest fallacy of democracy is that
everyone's opinion is worth the same. We once worried that democracy could not
survive if an undereducated populace knew too little. Now we worry if it can
survive us knowing too much. Democracy is being allowed to vote for the
candidate you dislike least. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or
acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he
sends forth a tiny ripple of hope...build(ing) a current that can sweep down
the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. The death of democracy is not likely to be
an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy,
indifference, and undernourishment. So long as we have enough people in this
country willing to fight for their rights, we'll be called a democracy. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is
about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful
authority a great deal of discretion about what you do. The way to virtually eliminate genocide
and mass murder appears to be through restricting and checking power. This
means to foster democratic freedom. Violence is the last resource of the
incompetence. He that accepts protection, stipulates
obedience. A great deal of intelligence can be
invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep. Democracy is a form of government in which
it is permitted to wonder aloud what the country could do under first-class
management. Good government could never be a
substitute for government by the people themselves. Democracy, as has been said of
Christianity, has never really been tried. The more corrupt the state, the numerous
the laws. The flood of money that gushes into
politics today is a pollution of democracy. Democracy means not "I am as good as you
are" but "You are as good as I am.". Democracy is not "I am as good as you",
but "You are as good as I am". Restlessness and discontent are the first
necessities of progress. I have long been convinced that
institutions purely democratic must, sooner or later, destroy liberty or
civilization, or both. If a little knowledge is dangerous, where
is the man who has so much as to be out of danger? Unnecessary laws are not good laws, but
traps for money. Whenever the people are well-informed,
they can be trusted with their own government. In a government bottomed on the will of
all, the... liberty of every individual citizen becomes interesting to all. The majority, oppressing an individual, is
guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the
strongest breaks up the foundations of society. The democracy will cease to exist when you
take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would
not. Laws provide against injury from others;
but not from ourselves. I know of no safe repository of the
ultimate power of society but the people. And if we think them not
enlightened enough, the remedy is not to take power from them, but to inform
them by education. It is the old practice of despots to use a
part of the people to keep the rest in order. It's not the voting that's democracy; it's
the counting. Creative ability and personal
responsibility are strongest when the mind is free from supernatural belief
and operates in an atmosphere of freedom and democracy. The most serious threat to democracy is
the notion that it has already been achieved. A great war always creates more scoundrels
than it kills. Democracy is a government where you can
say what you think even if you don't think. When the government fears the people, that
is LIBERTY. When people fear the government, that is TYRANNY. When a nation's government becomes more
fearful of its citizens' rights than protective of them, that nation's
future is only despotism and extinction. He who fox-like got his rank, Is wolf-like
in his office. Politics is the most concentrated
expression of economics. All extremes are bad. All that is good and
useful, if carried to extremes, may become-and beyond a certain limit is
bound to become-bad and injurious. Face the truth squarely. In politics that
is always the best and the only correct attitude. False rhetoric and false boastfulness
spell moral ruin and lead unfailingly to political extinction. Honesty in politics is the result of
strength; hypocrisy is the result of weakness. Our idea is that a state is strong when
the people are politically conscious. It is strong when the people know
everything, can form an opinion of everything, and do everything
consciously. Don't be afraid to admit defeat. Learn
from defeat. Do over again more thoroughly, more carefully, and more
systematically what you have done badly. People always have been and they always
will be stupid victims of deceit and self-deception in politics. Life teaches none but those who study it. The right to be respected is won by
respecting others. I am strongly convinced that the people or
society is the best and the most unerring critic. Democracy is when you are not closed for
being open. People aren't angels woven of light, but
neither are they beasts to be driven into stalls. ...a legal electoral system alone will not
guarantee full-fledged democracy unless it is incorporated into the real
democratic institutions of society as a whole. The pleasure of governing must certainly
be exquisite, if we may judge from the vast numbers who are eager to be
concerned with it. A great many laws in a country, like many
physicians, is a sign of malady. A democratic despotism is like a
theocracy: it assumes its own correctness. We must abandon the notion that the people
govern. Instead, we must adopt the theory that, by their occasional
mobilisations as a majority, people support or oppose the individuals who
actually govern. This is one of the paradoxes of the
democratic movement -- that it loves a crowd and fears the individuals who
compose it -- that the religion of humanity should have no faith in human
beings. Too many people expect wonders from
democracy, when the most wonderful thing of all is just having it. Political elections do not choose leaders
of society. Rather, they are an exercise in which groups of people choose
individuals who will assist them in looting other groups of individuals. The best defense against usurpatory
government is an assertive citizenry. Truth often suffers more by the heat of
its defenders than the arguments of its opposers. Necessity is the plea for every
infringement of human freedom: it is the argument of tyrants; it is the
creed of slaves. A politician will do anything to keep his
job - even become a patriot. The best argument against democracy is a
five minute conversation with the average voter. Many forms of Government have been tried,
and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that
democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is
the worst form of Government except all those others that have been |
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