Archive

Quotes

An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry.

—George Eliot, 1866

Despotism subjects a nation to one tyrant, democracy to many.

—Marguerite Gardiner, 1839

Whenever in history equality appeared on the agenda, it was exported somewhere else, like an undesirable.

—Mary McCarthy, 1971

The king times are fast finishing. There will be blood shed like water, and tears like mist; but the peoples will conquer in the end.

—Lord Byron, 1821

Some to the common pulpits, and cry out / “Liberty, freedom, and enfranchisement!”

—William Shakespeare, c. 1599

An electoral choice of ten different fascists is like choosing which way one wishes to die.

—George Jackson, 1971

Do you suppose it possible to know democracy without knowing the people?

—Xenophon, c. 370 BC

In a true democracy, everyone can be upper-class and live in Connecticut.

—Lisa Birnbach, 1980

The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletariat to the level of bourgeois stupidity.

—Gustave Flaubert, 1871

Vox populi, vox humbug.

—William Tecumseh Sherman, 1863

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

—Shimon Peres, 1995

Nothing but a permanent body can check the imprudence of democracy.

—Alexander Hamilton, 1787

Oh, democracy! Whither are you leading us?

—Aristophanes, 414 BC