Democracy Quotes – Reflections on Political Structures

"One of the horrors of democracy is that every idiot can invoke it when it suits their interests."

Wiglaf Droste

"The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you get to vote before you obey orders."

Charles Bukowski

"Democracy and socialism have nothing in common except a single word: equality. The difference is considerable: while democracy seeks equality in freedom, socialism seeks equality in restriction and subjugation."

Alexis De Tocqueville

"There are three kinds of tyrants: some obtain their proud position through elections by the people, others through armed force, and others through inheritance."

Étienne de La Boétie

"No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power."

Jacob Bronowski

"Well, of course, the people don't want war. (...) But ultimately, it is the leaders of a country who determine policy, and it is always easy to get the people to go along with it, whether it is a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, a parliament, or a communist dictatorship."

Hermann Göring

"Without an unfettered press, without liberty of speech, all of the outward forms and structures of free institutions are a sham, a pretense — the sheerest mockery. If the press is not free; if speech is not independent and untrammeled; if the mind is shackled or made impotent through fear, it makes no difference under what form of government you live, you are a subject and not a citizen"

William E. Borah

"A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself."

Joseph Pulitzer

"Democracy is just a false idol — a mere catchword and illusion of inferior classes, visionaries and dying civilizations."

H. P. Lovecraft

"Though it is disguised by the illusion that a bureaucracy accountable to a majority of voters, and susceptible to the pressure of organized minorities, is not exercising compulsion, it is evident that the more varied and comprehensive the regulation becomes, the more the state becomes a despotic power as against the individual. For the fragment of control over the government which he exercises through his vote is in no effective sense proportionate to the authority exercised over him by the government."

Walter Lippmann

"We are governed by limited people, whom limited people help to achieve majorities, with whom they make policies for limited people. This is the logic inherent in democracies, because due to the fundamental structure of the state form, in the end the dumbest prevail."

Ramin Peymani

"70% of the population — namely the lower 70% on the income and wealth scale — have absolutely no influence on political decisions. Yes, it is no wonder that the population sinks into apathy and lethargy and then seeks refuge in some political positions with an ugly face, hoping that through them they can regain some influence at all."

Prof. Rainer Mausfeld

"Those who are not interested in politics will be forever ruled by those who are."

G. Edward Griffin

"I confess I enjoy democracy immensely. It is incomparably idiotic, and hence incomparably amusing."

H. L. Mencken

"We have the best government that money can buy."

Mark Twain

"Hayekian democracy serves the function of making a capitalist market society appear to be ‘the people’s choice’ even though it has long been removed from democratic control."

Wolfgang Streeck

"If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're gonna get selfish, ignorant leaders."

George Carlin

"Very few people really care about freedom, about liberty, about the truth, very few. Very few people have guts, the kind of guts on which a real democracy has to depend. Without people with that sort of guts a free society dies or cannot be born."

Doris Lessing