Sydney J. Harris Quotes

If the people be governors, who shall be governed?

Are the governors such exceptionally gifted men as to enable them … to represent the masses and act in the interests of all men better than all men would be able to act for themselves?

When our Founders created this great experiment in self-governance, the House of Representatives became, by design, the body closest to the people. We are the most accountable, and we must be the most transparent.

Our democracy is designed to speak truth to power.

Democracy is when the people keep a government in check.

Democracy is a good client.

When a government for the people becomes a government in spite of the people, then who are we really serving?

The essence of a free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries.

The great constitutional corrective in the hands of the people against usurpation of power, or corruption by their agents is the right of suffrage; and this when used with calmness and deliberation will prove strong enough.

A government as good as the people.

All government is a trust. Every branch of government is a trust, and immemorially acknowledged to be so.

The public has to have a head, and if the President takes the heads away, the public will have his.

Public participation in the process of government is the essence of democracy.

The more powerful the state, the more important it submit to widely held norms and consensual methods.

I trust the American People more than American Institutions.

Look, the people will elect the government they think best.

Citizens do not just make up and preserve a Republic; they are its ultimate stakeholders and in fact pillars.

Democratic government requires the consent of the governed.

We want to strengthen democracy.

If there’s not a good feedback loop from the people to the government, and if you have rule of the bureaucrat — if the bureaucracy is in charge, then what meaning does democracy actually have? If the people cannot vote and have their will be decided by their elected representatives in the form of the president and the Senate and the House, then we don’t live in a democracy. We live in a bureaucracy.

Dishonesty in government is the business of every citizen. It is not enough to do your own job. There's no particular virtue in that. Democracy isn't a gift. It's a responsibility.

Democracy must learn to defend itself.

Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.

When the three branches of government have failed to represent the citizenry and the mass of the media has failed to represent the citizenry, then the citizenry better represent the citizenry.

War should only be declared by the authority of the people, whose toils and treasures are to support its burdens, instead of the government which is to reap its fruits.