political philosophy quotes

Libertarian socialism is properly to be regarded as the inheritor of the liberal ideals of the Enlightenment.

You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution.

The doctrine that everything is fine as long as the population is quiet, that applies in the Middle East, applies in Central America, it applies in the United States.

It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it; consequently, the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning.

The government is us; we are the government, you and I.

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.

The human being is in the most literal sense a political animal, not merely a gregarious animal, but an animal which can individuate itself only in the midst of society.

You can’t put democracy and freedom back into a box.

Democracy is the road to socialism.

You’re not just voting for an individual, in my judgment, you’re voting for an agenda. You’re voting for a platform. You’re voting for a political philosophy.

Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy.

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.

A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.

In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority.

The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples‘ money.

I should tie myself to no particular system of society other than of socialism.

Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.

If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost.

Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.

I consider anybody a twerp who hasn’t read ‚Democracy in America‘ by Alexis de Tocqueville. There can never be a better book than that one on the strengths and vulnerabilities inherent in our form of government.

I have often thought that if a rational Fascist dictatorship were to exist, then it would choose the American system.

When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than self-government – that is despotism.