Democratic Limitations Quotes

Changing things is not easy, and I say this without any irony. It is not that someone does not want to, but because it is a hard thing to do. Take Obama, a forward-thinking man, a liberal, a democrat. Did he not pledge to shut down Guantanamo before his election? But did he do it? No, he did not. And may I ask why not? Did he not want to do it? He wanted to, I am sure he did, but it did not work out. He sincerely wanted to do it, but did not succeed, since it turned out to be very complicated.

The prize for ultimate inefficiency goes to America. We have built in so many checks and balances that our 'leaders' are the most thoroughly hogtied of any on Earth.

Democracy means the opportunity to be everyone's slave.

The great advantage of representatives is their capacity of discussing public affairs. For this, the people collectively are extremely unfit, which is one of the chief inconveniences of a democracy.

What is any political campaign save a concerted effort to turn out a set of politicians who are admittedly bad and put in a set who are thought to be better. The former assumption, I believe is always sound; the latter is just as certainly false. For if experience teaches us anything at all it teaches us this: that a good politician, under democracy, is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.

A legitimate democracy cannot act against a terror organization because it is using civilians as a human shield, and therefore it should absorb attacks on its own civilians.

Though I admire republican principles in theory, yet I am afraid the practice may be too perfect for human nature. We tried a republic last century, and it failed. Let our enemies try next. I hate political experiments.

The leading elite of a country cannot be chosen by the multitude. To try to select this elite is like determining by majority vote who the poets, writers, mechanics, aviators or athletes of a country ought to be.

The people have only a very vague direct power. They have the power of voting against the administration, again after its decisions have been taken; but they have no way of getting into the question of policy-making, decision-making, except insofar as the vague forces and pressures of public debate and public opinion have their impact on the President. The President still has to decide. He can't go to the people and ask them to decide for him; he has to make the decision. In that sense he was condemned to be a dictator.

Democratic governments are not suited to the publication of the thunderous revelations I am in the habit of making. The unpublished parts will appear later... when Europe will have restored its traditional monarchies.

We need a more authoritative world...What's the alternative to democracy? There isn't one. But even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.

As artists, we have an opportunity to help the public evolve, raise consciousness and awareness, teach, heal, enlighten and inspire in ways the democratic process may not be able to touch. So we keep it moving.

I think 'one man, one vote,' just unrestricted democracy, would not be wise. There needs to be some kind of protection for the minority which the white people represent now, a minority, and they need and have a right to demand a protection of their rights.

Nobody who's thought about politics or democracy over the thousands of years that people have been thinking about democracy hasn't come up against the fact that the people will often be wrong. And what do you do when they are? You can't just say, 'Well, it's the will of the people.'

Democracy can only represent the average if not less than the average.

Democracy is being allowed to vote for the candidate you dislike least.

Representative democracy is a remarkably blunt instrument. Hundreds of issues are bundled together at every election, yet the vote tends to swing on just one or two of them.

It is wrong and dangerous to extol freedom by telling people that they will certainly be all right once they are free. The most we can say of democracy or freedom is that they give our personal abilities a little more influence on our well-being.

Vainly you talk about voting it down. When you have cast your millions of ballots, you have not reached the evil. It has fastened its root deep into the heart of the nation, and nothing but God's truth and love can cleanse the land. We must change the moral sentiment.