#democracy

In a democracy, the most important office is the office of citizen ↗

— Louis Brandeis

#inspirational #politics #inspirational

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

Stand here, he thought, and count the lighted windows of a city. You cannot do it. But behind each yellow rectangle that climbs, one over another, to the sky - under each bulb - down to there, see that spark over the river which is not a star? - there are people whom you will never see and who are your masters. At the supper tables, in the drawing rooms, in their beds and in their cellars, in their studies and in their bathrooms. Speeding in the subways under your feet. Crawling up in elevators through vertical cracks around you. Jolting past you in every bus. Your masters, Gail Wynand. There is a net - longer than the cables that coil through the walls of this city, larger than the mesh of pipes that carry water, gas and refuse - there is another hidden net around you; it is strapped to you, and the wires lead to every hand in the city. They jerked the wires and you moved. You were a ruler of men. You held a leash. A leash is only a rope with a noose at both ends. ↗

— Ayn Rand

#democracy #follower #leader #living #masses

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

A market economy is to economics what democracy is to government: a decent, if flawed, choice among many bad alternatives. ↗

— Charles Wheelan

#economics #free-market #markets #science

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy? ↗

— Mahatma Gandhi

#fascism #liberty #loss #politics #society

Anarchism? You bet your sweet betsy. The only cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy. Much more. ↗

— Edward Abbey

#democracy #anarchism

When majority is insane, sane must go to asylum. ↗

— Mark Twain

#humour #satire #satire

Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns in to universal, rather than religion-specific, values... it requires that their proposals be subject to argument and amenable to reason. Now I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, to take one example, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all. ↗

— Barack Obama

#democracy #government #religion #faith