Quotes Concerning Democracy

(Some of my favorites from a large collection of quotes in the beginning of Lummis' book)

C. Douglas Lummis. Radical Democracy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996.

The devil was the first democrat. –Lord Byron (Quoted, 2)

There is one safeguard known generally to the wise, which is an advantage and security to all, but especially to democracies as against despots. What is it? Distrust. –Demosthenes (Quoted, 2)

It cannot be reconciled with any philosophy of democracy that 50,000,000 white folk of the British Empire should be able to make the destiny of 450,000,000 yellow, brown, and black people a matter of solely their own internal decision. –W.E.B. Du Bois (quoted, 2)

Democracy has failed because so many fear it. They believe that wealth and happiness are so limited that a world full of intelligent, healthy and free people is impossible, if not undesirable. So, the world stews in blood, hunger, and shame. The fear is false, yet naught can face it but Faith. –W.E.B. Dubois (quoted, 2)

Democracy is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people. –Harry Emerson Fosdick (quoted, 3)

Democracy is like love in this: it cannot be brought to life by others in command. –Sidney Hook (quoted, 3)

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.—Abraham Lincoln (quoted, 4)

Go thou, and first establish democracy in thy household.—Lycurgus (quoted, 4)

Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary—Reinhold Niebuhr (quoted, 4)

A democratic orientation does not grow from and cannot exist within the present bureaucratic and “meritorian” ethic. It is an alternative to the present ethic, not an expansion or outgrowth of it—John Schaar (quoted 7)

Democracy is based in the existence of a strong hierarchy. The oligarchy of gross success seekers must have an eager troop of underlings who never cease to work in the interest of the leaders and who derive little material profit from their activity. It is necessary to keep this type of petty nobility in a state of excitement by lavishing them with tokens of friendship and by arousing them with feelings of honor while speaking to them in idealistic phrases. National glory, the domination of natural forces by science, the march of humanity toward enlightenment—this is the nonsense which is heard in the speeches of democratic orators.—Georges Sorel (quoted 7-8)

People who want to understand democracy should spend less time in the library with Aristotle and more time on the buses and subway.—Simeon Strunsky (quoted 8)

It would sometimes be easier to believe in democracy, or to stand for it, if the [19th-cemtury] change had not happened and it were still an unfavorable or factional term—Raymond Williams (quoted 8)