Monday 2 March 2009

A democracy of the people, for the people

"The greatest argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter."

- Winston Churchill -


"A democracy is nothing more than an angry mob, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine."

- Abraham Lincoln -


"Democracy is a very admirable form of government — for dogs."

- Edgar Allan Poe -


"Those who vote count for nothing; those who count the vote count for everything."

- Joseph Stalin -


"Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

- Winston Churchill -

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

so are you against democracy?

people want officers to blog more regularly but not to put up a series of pointless quotes

Anonymous said...

Tom Guise in pro-democracy shock!
March 3, 2009 at 9:54 pm | In Uncategorized | No Comments

One of our current guild exec members has recently written an odd post with a random list of anti-democracy quotations.

He’s obviously entirely within his rights to do that, and he certainly doesn’t say he agrees with the quotes or not, but I am concerned so I’ll ask him here. Mr. Marley, do you agree with any of the quotes on your post?

I’m going to put my five favourite pro-democracy quotes and say now that I agree with them all!

1) “Five questions to ask the powerful. “What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you use it? To whom are you accountable? And how do we get rid of you?” - Tony Benn, would be good to get Mr. Marley’s answers to these questions.

2) ”Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressman and government officials, but the voters of this country.” - Franklin D. Roosevelt

3) “In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich because there are more of them; and the will of the majority is supreme.” - Aristotle.

4) “So long as we have enough people in this country willing to fight for their rights we will be called a democracy.” - Roger Baldwin.

5) “Democracy…is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder; and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and non-equals alike.” - Plato