#democracy

[There] are people who make a complete and utter mockery of 'democracy' and 'equality' - they're the casualties of the primitive rules of competition which run our society, and the welfare state just keeps them alive. That's all. ↗

— Michael Palin

#competition #democracy #equality #poor #poverty

Equality may be a fiction but nonetheless one must accept it as a governing principle. ↗

— B.R. Ambedkar

#equality #equality

Time is the ultimate democracy. Rich and poor, young and old, male and female: all have 24 hours in a day and 7 days in a week. ↗

— Elizabeth Grace Saunders

#equality #life-balance #motivation #productivity #time

Communism destroys democracy. Democracy can also destroy Communism. ↗

— Andre Malraux

#communism #democracy #destroy #destroys

Democracy: when artists lose patronage and are simply patronized. This is the case everywhere except America, where true art has never existed, and democracy has recently followed suit. ↗

— Benson Bruno

#art #democracy #funny #art

Because it was enough for one of those favorites of His Distinguished Highness to issue a thoughtless decree. These young smart alecks see it, and they immediately imagine some fatal result and come running to the rescue. They start trying to mend things, straighten things out, patch things up and untangle them. And so instead of using their energy to build their own vision of the future, instead of trying to put their irresponsible, destructive fantasies into action, our malcontents had to roll up their sleeves and start untangling what the minsters had knotted up. And there's always a lot of work to untangling! So they untangle and untangle, drenched in sweat, wearing their nerves to shreds, running around, patching things up here and there, and in all this rush and overwork, in this whirlwind, their fantasies slowly evaporate from their hot heads. ↗

— Ryszard Kapuściński

#imagination

Voter suppression laws, overzealous filibuster use, you name it - the Republicans use every tactic they can to stop our democracy from actually selecting the person with the most support. ↗

— Jennifer Granholm

#democracy #every #filibuster #laws #most

A desire for privacy does not imply shameful secrets; Moglen argues, again and again, that without anonymity in discourse, free speech is impossible, and hence also democracy. The right to speak the truth to power does not shield the speaker from the consequences of doing so; only comparable power or anonymity can do that. ↗

— Nick Harkaway

#democracy #freedom-of-speech #power #privacy #responsibilities

To be a member of such a crowd ... is not much to be far removed from solitude; the freedom of everyone is assured by the freedom to which everyone else lays claim. ↗

— Remy de Gourmont

#democracy #freedom #individuality #mob #freedom

Der Endzweck des Staates ist [...] im Grund die Freiheit. ↗

— Baruch Spinoza

#freedom #rechtsstaat #freedom