Alan Coren Quotes

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

Democracy is the fig leaf of elitism.

Democracy doesn't mean electing a dictator every five years.

If a man went simply by what he saw, he might be tempted to affirm that the essence of democracy is melodrama.

Democracy is a process.

In a democracy, as a matter of course, every effort is made to seize upon and create publick opinion, which is, substantially, securing power.

Democracy affords debate, discussion and dissent.

Opinion and protest are the life breath of democracy—even when it blows heavy.

Democracy is much too important to be left to public opinion.

American politics has always had its vulgar side. Democracy has always had its vulgar side. Vulgarity is a transactional cost of democracy.

Democracy is about opposition.

Democracy in a nation of 300 million people can be noisy and messy and complicated. And when you try to do big things and make big changes, it stirs passions and controversy. That's just how it is.

The ballot box is a license to govern, not a mandate to rule.

In democracy dissent is an act of faith. Like medicine, the test of its value is not its taste, but its effect,...

No democracy pretends to be a tyranny. Most tyrannies pretend they are democracies. Democracy remains the definition of political legitimacy.

Democracy abhors a vacuum.

You can't keep a democracy going in a functional and constructive way if only 10 percent of the people you represent think your institution is functioning in an acceptable way. That's just not viable.

Democracy is finding proximate solutions to insoluble problems.

In a democracy, dissent is an act of faith.

Democracy is a process by which people are free to choose the man who will get the blame.

The way people in democracies think of the government as something different from themselves is a real handicap. And, of course, sometimes the government confirms their opinion.

Democracy is beautiful in theory; in practice it is a fallacy.

I'm the one who initiated the democratic process.

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.

And that is my definition of democracy, the right to be in a minority and not be suppressed.