Lapham’s Quarterly

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

Everyone else is represented in Washington by a rich and powerful lobby, it seems. But there is no lobby for the people.

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.

Democracy, like the human organism, carries within it the seed of its own destruction.

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.

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

When we define democracy now, it must still be as a thing hoped for but not seen.

The most may err as grossly as the few.

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

Democracy produces both heroes and villains, but it differs from a fascist state in that it does not produce a hero who is a villain.

All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it.

What keeps the democracy alive at all but the hatred of excellence, the desire of the base to see no head higher than their own?

Television is democracy at its ugliest.

Democracy is the fig leaf of elitism.

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

The people are the foundation of the state. If the foundations are firm, the state will be tranquil.

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

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

I have always been of the mind that in a democracy, manners are the only effective weapons against the bowie knife.

The worship of opinion is, at this day, the established religion of the United States.

I have often been convinced that a democracy is incapable of empire.

Oh, democracy! Whither are you leading us?

So many men, so many opinions.

Vox populi, vox humbug.

When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong.

Let the people think they govern, and they will be governed.

The only equals are those who are equally rich.

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

What touches all shall be approved by all.

Despotism achieves great things illegally; democracy doesn’t even take the trouble to achieve small things legally.

The tendency of democracies is, in all things, to mediocrity.

In America, everybody is, but some are more than others.

The world is wearied of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians.

If the people be the governors, who shall be governed?

It is hell to belong to a suppressed minority.

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

Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.

Democracy cannot be static. Whatever is static is dead.

Even though counting heads is not an ideal way to govern, at least it is better than breaking them.

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