Famous Quotes & Sayings

Ayn Rand

The right to vote is a consequence, not a primary cause, of a free social system - and its value depends on the constitutional structure implementing and strictly delimiting the voters' power; unlimited majority rule is an instance of the principle of tyranny.

Adolf Hitler

The young [Nazi] movement is in its nature and inner organization anti-parliamentarian; that is, it rejects... a principle of majority rule in which the leader is degraded to the level of mere executant of other people's wills and opinion.

Adolf Hitler

By rejecting the authority of the individual and replacing it by the numbers of some momentary mob, the parliamentary principle of majority rule sins against the basic aristocratic principle of Nature...

Thomas Jefferson

Though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable.

Jefferson Davis

Neither current events nor history show that the majority rule, or ever did rule.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

It is unnatural for a majority to rule, for a majority can seldom be organized and united for specific action, and a minority can.

P. J. O'Rourke

Now majority rule is a precious, sacred thing worth dying for. But like other precious, sacred things .... it's not only worth dying for; it can make you wish you were dead. Imagine if all life were determined by majority rule. Every meal would be a pizza.

Kent Conrad

America was founded on majority rule, not supermajority rule. Somehow, over the years, this has morphed into supermajority rule, and that changes things.

Samuel P. Huntington

Democracy is premised, in some measure, on majority rule, and democracy is difficult in a situation of concentrated inequalities in which a large, impoverished majority confronts a small, wealthy oligarchy.

Alan Bullock

Democracy is not about making speeches. It is about making committees work.

Alan Blinder

Public opinion is presumptively an input to policy formation in a democracy because politicians respond to it or at least are believed to respond [to it].

Al Smith

All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.

David Brock

I have seen, and I know firsthand, indeed from my own pen, how the organized Right has sabotaged not only journalism but also democracy and truth.

Benazir Bhutto

Freedom is not an end. Freedom is a beginning.

Bill Moyers

Jon Stewart is a remarkable satirist and parodist in the vein of Mark Twain, because Jon Stewart understands what Mark Twain knew, which is that the truth goes down more easily in a democracy when it's marinated in humor.

Chaka Fattah

Democracy derailed is democracy denied.

Bob Brown

For comprehensive Earth action, an all-of-the-Earth representative democracy is required. That is, a global parliament.

Donna Brazile

There is no place in our democracy for faulty voting equipment, long lines at the polls, untrained poll workers and any forms of chads,

David Crosby

There has never been a communism that worked. They were all dictatorships or oligarchies, every single one.

Tom Metzger

All systems are oligarchy. There is no other.

Jason Mraz

As an American citizen, one has to vote. If we don't vote, we're not doing our part. We'll become some sort of oligarchy.

Chris Hayes

Those who are able to climb up the ladder will find ways to pull it up after them, or selectively lower it down to allow their friends, allies, and kin to scramble up. In other words: 'Who says meritocracy says oligarchy.'

Chris Hayes

Who says meritocracy says oligarchy.