Tuesday 31 July 2012

Food For Thought


It is the very wantonness of folly for a man to search out the frets and burdens of his calling and give his mind every day to a consideration of them. They belong to human life. They are inevitable. Brooding only gives them strength. - Henry Ward Beecher

I believe that we are put here in human form to decipher the hieroglyphs of love and suffering. And, there is no degree of love or intensity of feeling that does not bring with it the possibility of a crippling hurt. But, it is a duty to take that risk and love without reserve or defense. - Allen Ginsberg

Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already. Of the things you have, select the best: and then reflect how eagerly they would have been sought if you did not have them. - Marcus Aurelius

Deceit / Deception - Quotes

Human beings seem to have an almost unlimited capacity to deceive themselves, and to deceive themselves into taking their own lies for truth. - R. D. Laing

In itself, the practice of deception is not particularly exacting; it is a matter of experience, of professional expertise, it is a facility most of us can acquire. - John le Carre

It is best, if possible, to deceive no one; for he that ... begins by deceiving others, will end ... by deceiving himself. - Charles Caleb Colton

It is easier to deceive yourself, and to do so unperceived, than to deceive another. - Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Men are never so easily deceived as when they are endeavouring to deceive others. - Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Some people are so much afraid of being deceived, that they never venture to trust; like misers, their avarice destroys their gain. - Norman MacDonald

The best way to deceive a knave is to tell him the truth. - Ivan Panin

There is no killing the suspicion that deceit has once begotten. - George Eliot






Monday 30 July 2012

Decisions - Quotes

A decision is the action an executive must take when he has information so incomplete that the answer does not suggest itself. - Arthur Radford

A decision made at night may be changed in the morning. - Unknown

A real decision is measured by the fact that you’ve taken a new action. If there’s no action, you haven’t truly decided. - Tony Robbins

Bold decisions give the best promise of success. - Edwin Rommel

Decide that you want it more than you are afraid of it. - Bill Cosby

Decide what you want, decide what you are willing to exchange for it. Establish your priorities and go to work. - H. L. Hunt

Decision is the spark that ignites action. Until a decision is made, nothing happens. Decision is the courageous facing of issues. It is focusing the powers of intelligence, meditation and prayer on the thing to be decided. - Unknown

Decision need not always be made at once. Deciding to delay making a decision is a decision in itself. Decision awakens the spirit of man. The great decision comes first, and the great work follows. - Unknown

Decisions determine destiny. - Unknown

Decisiveness is a characteristic of high-performing men and women. Almost any decision is better than no decision at all. - Brian Tracy

Don’t base your decisions on the advice of those who don’t have to deal with the results. - Unknown

If decisions were a choice between alternatives, decisions would come easy. Decision is the selection and formulation of alternatives. - Kenneth Burke

In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing. - Theodore Roosevelt

It is in your moment of decision that your destiny is shaped. - Anthony Robbins

It might be true that there are six billion people in this world and counting, but nevertheless...what you do makes a difference. It makes a difference, first of all, in material terms. It makes a difference to other people and it sets an example. In short, I think the message here is that we should never simply write ourselves off or see each other as a victim of various forces. It's always our decision who we are. - Unknown

It’s easy to make good decisions when there are no bad options. - Robert Half

No one learns to make right decisions without being free to make wrong ones. - Kenneth Sollitt

Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide. - Napoleon Boneparte

Once the decision has been made, close your ear even to the best counter argument: sign of a strong character. Thus an occasional will to stupidity. - Friedrich Nietzsche

Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sometimes it's the smallest decisions that can change your life forever. - Keri Russell

Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach. - Tony Robbins

That's the thing about freewill: Every decision we make is a choice against something as much as it is for something else. - Rebecca Serle

The quality of decision is like the well-timed swoop of a falcon which enables it to strike and destroy its victim. - Sun Tzu

When making a decision of minor importance, I have always found it advantageous to consider all the pros and cons. In vital matters, however, such as the choice of a mate or a profession, the decision should come from the unconscious, from somewhere within ourselves. In the important decisions of personal life, we should be governed, I think, by the deep inner needs of our nature. - Sigmund Freud

When possible make the decisions now, even if action is in the future. A reviewed decision usually is better than one reached at the last moment. - Wm. B. Given

Whenever I decided something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision. - Maya Angelou

We make our decisions, and then our decisions turn around and make us. - F. W. Boreham

You must know that in any moment a decision you make can change the course of your life forever: the very next person you stand behind in line or sit next to on an airplane, the very next phone call you make or receive, the very next movie you see or book you read or page you turn could be the one single thing that causes the floodgates to open, and all of the things that you've been waiting for to fall into place. - Tony Robbins

You must make a decision that you are going to move on. It won’t happen automatically. You will have to rise up and say, ‘I don’t care how hard this is, I don’t care how disappointed I am, I’m not going to let this get the best of me. I’m moving on with my life. - Joel Osteen

What A Wonderful World With David Attenborough - BBC One



 Copy and paste the link if clicking on it doesn't work

http://www.youtube.com/embed/auSo1MyWf8g?rel=0

Sunday 29 July 2012

How Did It Get So Late So Soon?


How did it get so late so soon?
Its night before its afternoon.
December is here before its June.
My goodness how the time has flown.
How did it get so late so soon?
 - Theodor Geisel

Friday 27 July 2012

Deeds - Quotes

A good deed is never lost. - Unknown

It is only our deeds that reveal who we are. - Carl Jung

Just as the sand-dunes, heaped one upon another, hide each the first, so in life the former deeds are quickly hidden by those that follow after. - Marcus Aurelius

Let a man avoid evil deeds as a man who loves life avoids poison. - The Buddha

Our deeds are fetters that we forge ourselves. - George Eliot

Our deeds follow us, and what we have been makes us what we are. - John Dykes

Our worth is determined by the good deeds we do, rather than by the fine emotions we feel. - Unknown

Small  deeds done are better than big deeds planned. - Peter Marshall

That light we see is burning in my hall. How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world. - Shakespeare

The deeds you do today may be the only sermon some people will hear today. - Saint Francis of Assisi

The smallest good deed is better than the grandest good intention. - Unknown

We would frequently be ashamed of our good deeds if people saw all of the motives that produced them. - Duc de La Rochefoucauld

With every deed you are sowing a seed, though the harvest you may not see. - Ella Wilcox 

Thursday 26 July 2012

Quote Worthy


Never ever suggest they don't have to pay you. What they pay for, they'll value. What they get for free, they'll take for granted, and then demand as a right. Hold them up for all the market will bear. - Lois Mcmaster Bujold  

He who confers a favour should at once forget it, if he is not to show a sordid ungenerous spirit. To remind a man of a kindness conferred and to talk of it, is little different from reproach. - Demosthenes  

We gain nothing by being with such as ourselves. We encourage one another in mediocrity. I am always longing to be with men more excellent than myself. - Charles Lamb  

Candour is a proof of both a just frame of mind and of a good tone of breeding. It is a quality that belongs equally to the honest man and to the gentleman. - James Fenimore Cooper  

Language is one of the greatest gifts man has devised for himself. It ranks, alongside the discovery of fire and the wheel, as a major influence in making modern man what he is today. - Edward Roscoe Murrow   

Wednesday 25 July 2012

Lao Tzu


Quotes by the sage, Lao Tzu

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.

If you would take, you must first give, this is the beginning of intelligence.

The softest things in the world overcome the hardest things in the world.

Life and death are one thread, the same line viewed from different sides.

Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it.

One who is too insistent on his own views, finds few to agree with him.

He who conquers others is strong; He who conquers himself is mighty.

How could man rejoice in victory and delight in the slaughter of men?

He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened.

A good traveller has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.

He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.

He who knows, does not speak. He who speaks, does not know.

Man's enemies are not demons, but human beings like himself.

Violence, even well intentioned, always rebounds upon oneself.

When a nation is filled with strife, then do patriots flourish.

Respond intelligently even to unintelligent treatment.

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

He who obtains has little. He who scatters has much.

He who does not trust enough, Will not be trusted.

An ant on the move does more than a dozing ox.

Anticipate the difficult by managing the easy.

Music in the soul can be heard by the universe.

The words of truth are always paradoxical.

Because of a great love, one is courageous.

Great acts are made up of small deeds.

He who talks more is sooner exhausted.

To see things in the seed, that is genius.

Silence is a source of great strength.

To lead people, walk behind them.

Nature is not human hearted.

Be the chief but never the lord.

He who is contented is rich.

Tuesday 24 July 2012

Food For Thought


Irregularity and want of method are only supportable in men of great learning or genius, who are often too full to be exact, and therefore they choose to throw down their pearls in heaps before the reader, rather than be at the pains of stringing them. - Joseph Addison

Because of the law of gravitation the apple falls to the ground. Because of the law of growth the acorn becomes a mighty oak. Because of the law of causation, a man is ‘as he thinketh in his heart’. Nothing can happen without its adequate cause. - Don Carlos Musser

There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea, we are now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures. - William Shakespeare

Monday 23 July 2012

Points of View


A very good advertisement by Guardian.
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Sunday 22 July 2012

Life


To awaken each morning with a smile brightening my face; to greet the day with reverence for the opportunities it contains; to approach my work with a clean mind; to hold ever before me, even in the doing of little things, the Ultimate Purpose toward which I am working; to meet men and women with laughter on my lips and love in my heart; to be gentle, kind, and courteous through all the hours; to approach the night with weariness that ever woos sleep and the joy that comes from work well done – this is how I desire to spend wisely my days. - Thomas Dreier

Although men have a common destiny, each individual also has to work out his own personal salvation for himself. We can help one another to find the meaning of life no doubt. But in the last analysis, the individual person is responsible for living his own life and for ‘finding himself’. If he persists in shifting his responsibility to somebody else, he fails to find out the meaning of his own existence. You cannot tell me who I am, and I cannot tell you who you are. If you do not know your own identity, who is going to identify you? - Thomas Merton

Friday 20 July 2012

Defeat - Quotes

A defeat to a brave man is only a victory deferred. - James Ellis

A good man would prefer to be defeated than to defeat injustice by evil means. - Sallust

A great many people never really discover themselves until ruin stares them in the face. They do not seem to know how to bring out their reserves until they are overtaken by an overwhelming disaster, or until the sight of their blighted prospects and of the wreck of their homes and happiness stirs them to the very centre of their beings … There is something in defeat which puts new determination into a man of mettle. - Orison Swett Marden

A wise man fights to win, but he is twice a fool who has no plan for possible defeat. - Louis L’amour

A young man is not fitted for life's battle until he has met and survived defeat. - Lewis F. Korns

Always have the situation under control, even if losing. Never betray an inward sense of defeat. - Arthur Ashe

Avoid defeat and you will avoid success. - Chinese Proverb

Be gracious in defeat. - Unknown

Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent. - Marilyn vos Savant

Defeat begins with the fear that one has lost. - Kobo Abe

Defeat is always momentary. - Peter Jackson

Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure. - George Edward Woodberry

Defeat isn’t bitter, if you don’t swallow it. - Unknown

Defeat may serve as well as victory to shake the soul and let the glory out. - Edwin Markham

Defeat never comes to any man until he admits it. - Josephus Daniels

Defeat should never be a source of discouragement, but rather a fresh stimulus. - Bishop Robert South 

Defeat teaches us life's most valuable lessons. - Chinese Proverb

He had an idea that even when beaten he could steal a little victory by laughing at defeat. - John Steinbeck

Humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat. - Ralph Ellison

If a victory is told in detail, one can no longer distinguish it from a defeat. - Jean-Paul Sartre

It is defeat that turns bone to flint; it is defeat that turns gristle to muscle; it is defeat that makes men invincible. - Henry Ward Beecher

Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat. - F. Scott Fitzgerald

One test of strength is the ability to take defeat graciously. - Lewis F. Korns

Somewhere in the world there is a defeat for everyone. Some are destroyed by defeat, and some made small and mean by victory. Greatness lives in one who triumphs equally over defeat and victory. - John Steinbeck

The deepest personal defeat suffered by human beings is constituted by the difference between what one was capable of becoming and what one has in fact become. - Unknown

The first step in our journey of prosperity often is defeat. - Edward Counsel

The taste of defeat has a richness of experience all its own. - Bill Bradley

There is no defeat except from within. - American Proverb

To be defeated, but not to give in, is victory. - Neal Ascherson 

To me, defeat in anything is merely temporary, and its punishment is but an urge for me to greater effort to achieve my goal. Defeat simply tells me that something is wrong in my doing; it is a path leading to success and truth. - Bruce Lee

True discipline is really just self-remembering; no forcing or fighting is necessary. - Charles Eisenstein

Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan. - John F. Kennedy

We learn little from victory, much from defeat. - Japanese Proverb

We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated. - Maya Angelou

What is defeat? Nothing but education, nothing but the first step to something better. - Wendell Phillips

When defeat comes, accept it as a signal that your plans are not sound, rebuild those plans, and set sail once more toward your coveted goal. - Napoleon Hill

When you are defeated, just push forward and keep going, prove to yourself that you’ll never stay down. - Unknown

Where defeat is inevitable, it is expedient to yield. - Roman Proverb

You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it. - Maya Angelou

Thursday 19 July 2012

Quote Worthy


Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I woke up, I am reborn - Mahatma Gandhi

Prefer a loss to a dishonest gain; the one brings pain at the moment, the other for all time. - Eleanor Carroll Chilton

Where duty is plain, delay is both foolish and hazardous; where it is not, delay may be both wisdom and safety. - Tryon Edwards
  
He who is humble is confident and wise. He who brags is insecure and lacking. - Lisa Edmondson

A pint cant hold a quart if it holds a pint, it is doing all that can be expected of it. - Margaret Deland

Opposites can attract, as in magnetism. Or explode, as in matter and antimatter. - Peter David

Search not to find things too deeply hid; Nor try to know things whose knowledge is forbid. - John Denham

First ask yourself: What is the worst that can happen? Then prepare to accept it. Then prepare to improve on the worst. - Dale Carnegie

Wednesday 18 July 2012

Zhuang Tzu


Chuang Tzu was a Taoist sage, living sometime before 250 B.C. The book, by the same name, Chuang Tzu, is believed to contain both his own writings and writings by others about him and his teachings.
". . . ‘Chuang-Tzu’ is distinguished by its brilliant and original style, with abundant use of satire, paradox, and seemingly nonsensical stories. Chuang-Tzu emphasizes the relativity of all ideas. . . . He puts forward as the solution to the problems of the human condition, freedom in identification with the universal Tao, or principle of Nature."
- The Columbia Encyclopedia, 4th Edition.

If a man is crossing a river and an empty boat collides with his own skiff, even though he be a bad-tempered man he will not become very angry. But if he sees a man in the boat, he will shout at him to steer clear. If the shout is not heard, he will shout again, and yet again, and begin cursing. And all because there is somebody in the boat. Yet if the boat were empty, he would not be shouting, and not angry. If you can empty your own boat crossing the river of the world, no one will oppose you, no one will seek to harm you.... Who can free himself from achievement, and from fame, descend and be lost amid the masses of men? He will flow like Tao, unseen, he will go about like Life itself with no name and no home. Simple is he, without distinction. To all appearances he is a fool. His steps leave no trace. He has no power. He achieves nothing, has no reputation. Since he judges no one, no one judges him. Such is the perfect man: His boat is empty. - Chuang Tzu

You train your eye and your vision lusts after color. You train your ear, and you long for delightful sound. You delight in doing good, and your natural kindness is blown out of shape. You delight in righteousness, and you become righteous beyond all reason. You overdo liturgy, and you turn into a ham actor. Overdo your love of music, and you play corn. Love of wisdom leads to wise contriving. Love of knowledge leads to faultfinding. If men would stay as they really are, taking or leaving these eight delights would make no difference. But if they will not rest in their right state, the eight delights develop like malignant tumors. The world falls into confusion. Since men honour these delights, and lust after them, the world has gone stone-blind. When the delight is over, they still will not let go of it. . . . - Chuang Tzu

Tuesday 17 July 2012

Food For Thought


Irregularity and want of method are only supportable in men of great learning or genius, who are often too full to be exact, and therefore they choose to throw down their pearls in heaps before the reader, rather than be at the pains of stringing them. - Joseph Addison

Because of the law of gravitation the apple falls to the ground. Because of the law of growth the acorn becomes a mighty oak. Because of the law of causation, a man is ‘as he thinketh in his heart’. Nothing can happen without its adequate cause. - Don Carlos Musser

There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea, we are now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures. - William Shakespeare

Monday 16 July 2012

Very Drunk


              A man had been drinking at a pub all night. The bartender finally said that the bar was closing. So the man stood up to leave and fell flat on his face. He tried to stand one more time; same result. He figured he would crawl outside and get some fresh air and maybe that would sober him up.
              Once outside he stood up and fell flat on his face. So he decided to crawl the four blocks to his home. When he arrived at the door he stood up and again fell flat on his face. He crawled through the door and into his bedroom. When he reached his bed he tried one more time to stand up. This time he managed to pull himself upright, but he quickly fell right into bed and was sound asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
              He was awakened the next morning to his wife standing over him, shouting, “So, you’ve been out drinking again!”
              “What makes you say that?’’ he asked, putting on an innocent look.
              “The pub called - you left your wheelchair there again.”

Sunday 15 July 2012

Democracy - Quotes

A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption and carry desolation in their way. - Fisher Ames

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

A marvel that has nothing to offer, democracy is at once a nation's paradise and its tomb. - Emil Cioran

A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person. - James Madison

All those hints and glimpses of a larger and more satisfying democracy, which literature and our own hopes supply, have a tendency to slip away from us and to leave us sadly unguided and perplexed when we attempt to act upon them. - Jane Addams

Although our interests as citizens vary, each one is an artery to the heart that pumps life through the body politic, and each is important to the health of democracy. - Bill Moyers

Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge. - Isaac Asimov

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. - Abraham Lincoln

As long as the differences and diversities of mankind exist, democracy must allow for compromise, for accommodation, and for the recognition of differences. - Eugene McCarthy

Democracy and so-called human rights are only a window dressing designed to keep the naked facts hidden under a cloak of false decency. - Paula Horan

Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education. - Franklin D. Roosevelt

Democracy consists of choosing your dictators, after they've told you what it is you want to hear. - Alan Coren

Democracy depends on citizens being informed, and since our media, especially television (which is the most important source of news for most Americans) reports mostly what the people in power do, and repeats what the people in power say, the public is badly informed, and it means we cannot really say we have a functioning democracy. - Howard Zinn

Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions – it only guarantees equality of opportunity. - Irving Kristol

Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor. - James Russell Lowell

Democracy has become, unless I mistake, a kind of test or shibboleth, by which we try men and measures; and this is the same as to say that it is merely a word which is powerful with us, and not the wide and true notion of what the word means. But we must define the true import of words, and not be slaves to syllables; for democracy in form is not necessarily people-power in fact, but power perhaps of a few, who cajole the many and so lead and use the people for their own ends. - James Vial Blake

Democracy is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequal alike. - Plato

Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve. - George Bernard Shaw

Democracy is a double edge sword. - Roger Anderson

Democracy is a form of the state, it represents, on the one hand, the organized, systematic use of force against persons; but, on the other hand, it signifies the formal recognition of equality of citizens, the equal right of all to determine the structure of, and to administer, the state. - Vladimir Lenin

Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. - H. L. Mencken

Democracy is a system that gives people a chance to elect rascals of their own choice. - Doug Larson

Democracy is alive, and like any other living thing it either flourishes and grows or withers and dies. There is no in-between. - Saul Alinsky

Democracy is also a single ideology, and, like all such templates, it has its limits. what works in a legislature might not work in a corporation. - Fareed Zakaria

Democracy is hypocrisy without limitation. - Iskander Mirza

Democracy is not something you believe in or a place to hang your hat, but it’s something you do. You participate. If you stop doing it, democracy crumbles. - Abbie Hoffman

Democracy is popular because of the illusion of choice and participation it provides, but when you live in a society in which most people’s knowledge of the world extends as far as sports, sitcoms, reality shows, and celebrity gossip, democracy becomes a very dangerous idea. Until people are properly educated and informed, instead of indoctrinated to be ignorant mindless consumers, democracy is nothing more than a clever tool used by the ruling class to subjugate the rest of us. - Gavin Nascimento

Democracy is the art of running the circus from the monkey cage. - H. L. Mencken

Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be. - Sydney J. Harris

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half the time. - E. B. White

Democracy is the road to socialism. - Karl Marx

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote! - Benjamin Franklin

Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers. - Aristotle

Democracy means government by discussion, but it is only effective if you can stop people talking. - Clement Atlee

Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people. - Oscar Wilde

Democracy must be built through open societies that share information. When there is information, there is enlightenment. When there is debate, there are solutions. When there is no sharing of power, no rule of law, no accountability, there is abuse, corruption, subjugation and indignation. - Atifete Jahjaga

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

Democracy works when people claim it as their own. - Bill Moyers

Democracy, like liberty, justice and other social and political rights, is not "given", it is earned through courage, resolution and sacrifice. - Aung San Suu Kyi

Democracy… while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide. - John Adams

Democracy's worst fault is that its leaders are likely to reflect the faults and virtues of their constituents. - Robert A. Heinlein

Democratic institutions form a system of quarantine for tyrannical desires. - Friedrich Nietzsche

Democrats are children of the Enlightenment. They believe in the perfectibility of humanity. They revere systems even more than they do results. - Paul Begala

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

Does this mean that I am an opponent of democracy? Not at all. Fiction for fiction, it is the least harmful. But it is well not to confound its promises with realities. The fiction consists in the postulate of all democratic government, that the great majority of the electors in a state are enlightened, free, honest, and patriotic--whereas such a postulate is a mere chimera. The majority in any state is necessarily composed of the most ignorant, the poorest, and the least capable; the state is therefore at the mercy of accident and passion, and it always ends by succumbing at one time or another to the rash conditions which have been made for its existence. A man who condemns himself to live upon the tight-rope must inevitably fall; one has no need to be a prophet to foresee such a result. - Henri-Frederic Amiel

Everybody’s for democracy in principle. It’s only in practice that the thing gives rise to stiff objections. - Meg Greenfield

I have hinted that what people are afraid of in democracy is less the thing itself than what they conceive to be its necessary adjuncts and consequences. It is supposed to reduce all mankind to a dead level of mediocrity in character and culture, to vulgarize men's conceptions of life, and therefore their code of morals, manners, and conduct – to endanger the rights of property and possession. But I believe that the real gravamen of the charges lies in the habit it has of making itself generally disagreeable by asking the Powers that Be at the most inconvenient moment whether they are the powers that ought to be. If the powers that be are in a condition to give a satisfactory answer to this inevitable question, they need feel in no way discomfited by it. - James Russell Lowell

If in a democratic country nothing can be permanently achieved save through the masses of the people, it will be impossible to establish a higher political life than the people themselves crave. - Jane Addams 

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 the government to the utmost. - Aristotle

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

In the strict sense of the term, a true democracy has never existed, and never will exist. It is against natural order that the great number should govern and that the few should be governed. - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

If we desire a society of peace, then we cannot achieve such a society through violence. If we desire a society without discrimination, then we must not discriminate against anyone in the process of building this society. If we desire a society that is democratic, then democracy must become a means as well as an end. - Bayard Rustin

In a democracy, every ordinary citizen is effectively a king – but a king in a constitutional democracy, a monarch who decides only formally, whose function is merely to sign off on measures proposed by an executive administration. This is why the problem with democratic rituals is homologous to the great problem of constitutional monarchy: how to protect the dignity of the king? How to maintain the appearance that the king effectively makes decisions, when we all know this not to be true? - Slavoj Zizek

Modern democracies will face difficult new challenges –ighting terrorism, adjusting to globalization, adapting to an aging society – and they will have to make their system work much better than it currently does. That means making democratic decision-making effective, reintegrating constitutional liberalism into the practice of democracy, rebuilding broken political institutions and civic associations. Perhaps most difficult of all, it requires that those with immense power in our societies embrace their responsibilities, lead, and set standards that are not only legal, but moral. Without this inner stuffing, democracy will become an empty shell, not simply inadequate but potentially dangerous, bringing with it the erosion of liberty, the manipulation of freedom, and the decay of a common life. - Fareed Zakaria

On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does. - Will Rogers

Our democracy is but a name. We vote? What does that mean? It means that we choose between two bodies of real, though not avowed, autocrats. We choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. - Helen Keller

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty. - John Adams

The best cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy. - Edward Abbey

The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment. - Robert Hutchins

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. - Thomas Jefferson


The democratic aspiration is no mere recent phase in human history. It is human history. - Franklin D. Roosevelt

The essence of democracy is its assurance that every human being should so respect himself and should be so respected in his own personality that he should have opportunity equal to that of every other human being to show what he was meant to become. - Anna Garlin Spencer

The highest measure of democracy is neither the ‘extent of freedom’ nor the ‘extent of equality’, but rather the highest measure of participation. - A. d. Benoist

The idea of representative democracy will change. Today, we claim we don't use direct democracy because it would be impractical to poll everybody on every issue. The truth is that we use representative democracy because we want to get an above-average group to think through problems and make choices that, in the short term, might not be obvious – even if they are to everybody's benefit over the long term. - Bill Gates

The only distinction that democracies reward is a high degree of conformity. - Ambrose Bierce

The strongest democracies flourish from frequent and lively debate, but they endure when people of every background and belief find a way to set aside smaller differences in service of a greater purpose. - Barack Obama

The very essence of democracy is the absolute faith that while people must cooperate, the first function of democracy, its peculiar gift, is to develop each individual into everything that he might be. - Edwin H. Land

The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeois. - Gustave Flaubert

To view the opposition as dangerous is to misunderstand the basic concepts of democracy. To oppress the opposition is to assault the very foundation of democracy. - Aung San Suu Kyi

We should be more modest in our belief that we can impose democracy on a country through military force. In the past, it has been movements for freedom from within tyrannical regimes that have led to flourishing democracies; movements that continue today. This doesn’t mean abandoning our values and ideals; wherever we can, it’s in our interest to help foster democracy through the diplomatic and economic resources at our disposal. But even as we provide such help, we should be clear that the institutions of democracy – free markets, a free press, a strong civil society – cannot be built overnight, and they cannot be built at the end of a barrel of a gun. And so we must realize that the freedoms FDR once spoke of – especially freedom from want and freedom from fear – do not just come from deposing a tyrant and handing out ballots; they are only realized once the personal and material security of a people is ensured as well. - Barack Obama

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy? - Mahatma Gandhi

What we call a democratic society might be defined for certain purposes as one in which the majority is always prepared to put down a revolutionary minority. - Walter Lippmann

You've got to be an optimist to be a Democrat, and you've got to be a humourist to stay one. - Will Rogers