#democracy

Without Revolutionary theory, there can be no Revolutionary Movement. ↗

— Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

#democracy #freedom #marxism #radicalism #rebellion

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

Everybody has a right to be defended, and every lawyer has a duty to defend people accused. And my office is to defend him, to discuss the accusation point by point, as I think this is a normal step in a democracy. ↗

— Jacques Verges

#accused #defend #defended #democracy #discuss

I feel obligated to point out, though, that I have always been a sucker for ideas I find aesthetically pleasing. The cosmic sweep of the thing - an interstellar kula chain - affirming the differences and at the same time emphasizing the similarities of all the intelligent races in the galaxy - tying them together, building common traditions... The notion strikes me as kind of fine. ↗

— Roger Zelazny

#democracy #difference #globalization #ideas #inspirational

We like to stress the commonness of heroes. Essences seem undemocratic. We feel oppressed by the call to greatness. We regard an interest in glory or perfection as a sign of mental unhealthiness, and have decided that high achievers, who are called overachievers, owe their surplus ambition to a defect in mothering (either too little or too much). We want to admire but think we have a right not to be intimidated. We dislike feeling inferior to an ideal. So away with ideals, with essences. The only ideals allowed are healthy ones -- those everyone may aspire to, or comfortably imagine oneself possessing. ↗

— Susan Sontag

#ambition #democracy #egalitarianism #equality #essence

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge. ↗

— Isaac Asimov

#intellectual #political #willful-ignorance #life

I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run. ↗

— Alexis de Tocqueville

#men

My people are going to learn the principles of democracy the dictates of truth and the teachings of science. Superstition must go. Let them worship as they will, every man can follow his own conscience provided it does not interfere with sane reason or bid him act against the liberty of his fellow men. ↗

— Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

#religion #secularism #men

The flood of money that gushes into politics today is a pollution of democracy. ↗

— Theodore White

#democracy #flood #into #money #pollution

Charity is today a 'political charity.'. . . it means the transformation of a society structured to benefit a few who appropriate to themselves the value of the work of others. This transformation ought to be directed toward a radical change in the foundation of society, that is, the private ownership of the means of production. ↗

— Gustavo Gutiérrez

#egalitarian #equality #freedom #change