The limitations imposed by democratic political practices makes it difficult to conduct our foreign affairs in the national interest.more Dean Acheson quotes |
The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.more Lord Acton quotes |
By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes is his duty against the influence of authority and majorities, custom and opinion.more Lord Acton quotes |
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If a majority are capable of preferring their own private interest, or that of their families, counties, and party, to that of the nation collectively, some provision must be made in the constitution, in favor of justice, to compel all to respect the common right, the public good, the universal law, in preference to all private and partial considerations... And that the desires of the majority of the people are often for injustice and inhumanity against the minority, is demonstrated by every page of history... To remedy the dangers attendant upon the arbitrary use of power, checks, however multiplied, will scarcely avail without an explicit admission some limitation of the right of the majority to excercise sovereign authority over the individual citizen... In popular governments [democracies], minorities [individuals] constantly run much greater risk of suffering from arbitrary power than in absolute monarchies...more John Adams quotes |
Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.more John Adams quotes |
no good government but what is republican...
the very definition of a republic is
'an empire of laws, and not of men.'more John Adams quotes |
Were I to define the British constitution, therefore, I should say, it is a limited monarchy, or a mixture of the three forms of government commonly known in the schools, reserving as much of the monarchical splendor, the aristocratical independency, and the democratical freedom, as are necessary that each of these powers may have a control, both in legislation and execution, over the other two, for the preservation of the subject's liberty.more John Adams quotes |
Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.more John Quincy Adams quotes |
It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.more Samuel Adams quotes |
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We stand today at a crossroads: One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other leads to total extinction. Let us hope we have the wisdom to make the right choice.more Woody Allen quotes |
[O]ur sages in the great [constitutional] convention...
intended our government should be a republic
which differs more widely from a democracy
than a democracy from a despotism.
The rigours of a despotism often... oppress only a few,
but it is the very essence and nature of a democracy,
for a faction claiming to oppress a minority, and
that minority the chief owners of the property
and truest lovers of their country.more Fisher Ames quotes |
Liberty has never lasted long in a democracy, nor has it ever ended in anything better than despotism.more Fisher Ames quotes |
The USA was founded in the name of democracy, equality and individual freedom, but is failing to deliver the fundamental promise of protecting rights for all.more Amnesty International quotes |
Democracy arose from men thinking that if they are equal in any respect they are equal in all respectsmore Aristotle quotes |
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A democracy is a government in the hands of men of low birth, no property, and vulgar employments.more Aristotle quotes |
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The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.more Marcus Aurelius quotes |
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To permit every interest group, especially those who claim to be victimized by unfair expression, their own legislative exceptions to the First Amendment so long as they succeed in obtaining a majority of legislative votes in their favor demonstrates the potentially predatory nature of what defendants seek through this Ordinance.more Sarah Evans Barker quotes |
Thought that is silenced is always rebellious. Majorities, of course, are often mistaken. This is why the silencing of minorities is necessarily dangerous. Criticism and dissent are the indispensable antidote to major delusions.more Alan Barth quotes |
Democrats will play the old Washington game of calling reductions in the rate of growth of spending for any program a 'cut'.more Bruce Bartlett quotes |
Civilization exists precisely so that there may be no masses but rather men alert enough never to constitute masses.more Georges Bernanos quotes |
The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society.more Edward Bernays quotes |
The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the [public] is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.'more Edward Bernays quotes |
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Vote: The instrument and symbol of a free man's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.more Ambrose Bierce quotes |
The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.more Niels Bohr quotes |
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Anybody that wants
the Presidency so much
that he'll spend two years
organizing and campaigning for it
is not to be trusted
with the office.more David Broder quotes |
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.more Giordano Bruno quotes |
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We are thus in the position of having to borrow from Europe to defend Europe, of having to borrow from China and Japan to defend Chinese and Japanese access to Gulf oil, and of having to borrow from Arab emirs, sultans and monarchs to make Iraq safe for democracy. We borrow from the nations we defend so that we may continue to defend them. To question this is an unpardonable heresy called 'isolationism.'more Patrick J. Buchanan quotes |
We are so concerned to flatter the majority that we lose sight of how very often it is necessary, in order to preserve freedom for the minority, let alone for the individual, to face that majority down.more William F. Buckley, Jr. quotes |
There can be no assumption that today’s majority is “right” and the Amish or others like them are “wrong.” A way of life that is odd or even erratic but interferes with no right or interests of others is not to be condemned because it is different.more Justice Warren E. Burger quotes |
To govern according to the sense and agreement of the interests of the people is a great and glorious object of governance. This object cannot be obtained but through the medium of popular election, and popular election is a mighty evil.more Edmund Burke quotes |
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Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.more Edmund Burke quotes |
To maintain the ascendancy of the Constitution over the lawmaking majority is the great and essential point on which the success of the [American] system must depend; unless that ascendancy can be preserved, the necessary consequence must be that the laws will supersede the Constitution; and, finally, the will of the Executive, by influence of its patronage, will supersede the laws ...more John C. Calhoun quotes |
The government of the absolute majority is but the government of the strongest interests; and when not effectively checked, is the most tyrannical and oppressive that can be devised... [To read the Constitution is to realize that] no free system was ever farther removed from the principle that the absolute majority, without check or limitation, ought to govern.more John C. Calhoun quotes |
Stripped of all its covering, the naked question is, whether ours is a federal or consolidated government;
a constitutional or absolute one; a government resting solidly on the basis of the sovereignty of the States,
or on the unrestrained will of a majority; a form of government, as in all other unlimited ones, in which injustice, violence, and force must ultimately prevail.more John C. Calhoun quotes |
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If pigs could vote, the man with the slop bucket would be elected swineherd every time, no matter how much slaughtering he did on the side.more Orson Scott Card quotes |
Democracy is, by the nature of it, a self-canceling buisness: and gives in the long run a net result of zero.more Thomas Carlyle quotes |
There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration.more Andrew Carnegie quotes |
