#Democracy

"But love, like the sun that it is, sets afire and melts everything. what greed and privilege to build up over whole centuries the indignation of a pious spirit, with its natural following of oppressed souls, will cast down with a single shove."

"It's true that General Musharraf opposes my return, seeing me as a symbol of democracy in the country. He is comfortable with dictatorship. I hope better sense prevails."

"You have to remember one thing about the will of the people: it wasn't that long ago that we were swept away by the Macarena."

"I'm an American. We've translated democracy and brotherhood and equality into enterprise and opportunity and success - and that's getting Americanised."

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby."

"The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end."

"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."

"People shouldn't be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people."

"Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred."

"Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more stupid than nature made them."

"Democracy should always be viewed with a philosophical perspective rather than a political one, because after all democracy was born to a philosopher and murdered by a politician."

"I have an unshaken conviction that democracy can never be undermined if we maintain our library resources and a national intelligence capable of utilizing them."[Letter to Herbert Putnam; in: Waters, Edward N.: Herbert Putnam: the tallest little man in the world; Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress 33:2 (April 1976), p. 171]"

"It’s not unpatriotic to denounce an injustice committed on our behalf, perhaps it’s the most patriotic thing we can do."

"In a well-functioning democracy, the state constitution is considered more important than God's holy book, whichever holy book that may be, and God matters only in your private life."

"Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all."

"You show me a capitalist, and I'll show you a bloodsucker"

"Our only real hope for democracy is that we get the money out of politics entirely and establish a system of publicly funded elections."

"He didn't ask "Where will you spend eternity?"as religious the-end-is-near picketers did but rather, "With what, in this modern democracy, will you meet the demands of your soul?"

"The only way we'll get freedom for ourselves is to identify ourselves with every oppressed people in the world. We are blood brothers to the people of Brazil, Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba -- yes Cuba too."

"We live in a system that espouses merit, equality, and a level playing field, but exalts those with wealth, power, and celebrity, however gained."