0 comment Friday, June 27, 2014 | admin
More ''lighthouses in a foggy world'', with some wisdom on these subjects.
Liberty, equality, fraternity -- and democracy:
"Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people... Be not intimidated, therefore, by any terrors, from publishing with the utmost freedom...nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberty by any pretenses of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery, and cowardice."
-- John Adams
"When you become entitled to exercise the right of voting for public officers, let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers, just men who will rule in the fear of God. The preservation of a republican government depends on the faithful discharge of this duty; if the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted; laws will be made not for the public good so much as for the selfish or local purposes. Corrupt or incompetent men will be appointed to execute the Laws; the public revenues will be squandered on unworthy men; and the rights of the citizens will be violated or disregarded. If a republican government fails to secure public prosperity and happiness, it must be because the citizens neglect the divine commands, and elect bad men to make and administer the Laws." - Noah Webster, History of the United States
"The destiny of any nation at any given time depends on the opinion of its young people, those under twenty-five." - Goethe
''If men use their liberty in such a way as to surrender their liberty, are they thereafter any the less slaves? If people by a plebiscite elect a man despot over them, do they remain free because the despotism was of their own making?" - Herbert Spencer, The New Toryism, 1884
"I could see how 'democracy' might do very well in a society of saints and sages led by an Alfred or an Antoninus Pius. Short of that, I was unable to see how it could come to anything but an ad-hocracy of mass-men led by a sagacious knave. The collective capacity for bringing forth any other outcome seemed simply not there. To my ideas the incident of Aristides and the Athenian mass-man was perfectly exhibitory of 'democracy' in practice. Socrates could not have got votes enough out of the Athenian mass-men to be worth counting, but Eubulus easily could, and did, wangle enough to keep himself in office as long as the corrupt fabric of the Athenian State held together. As against a Jesus, the historic choice of the mass-man goes regularly to some Barabbas." - Albert Jay Nock, Memoirs
"A democracy is a state in which the poor, gaining the upper hand, kill some and banish others, and then divide the offices among the remaining citizens equally, usually by lot." - Plato, The Republic, VIII
"Democracy arose from men thinking that if they are equal in any respect they are equal in all respects." - Aristotle, Politics
"A democracy is a government in the hands of men of low birth, no property, and vulgar employments." - Aristotle, Rhetoric
"If there were a nation of gods they would be governed democratically, but so perfect a government is not suitable to men.'' - Rousseau, Du contrat social, III
"Equality may exist only among slaves." - Aristotle
"Equality is a slogan based on envy. It signifies in the heart of every republican: 'Nobody is going to occupy a place higher than I.� - Alexis de Tocqueville
"Political equality is against nature. Social equality is against nature. Economic equality is against nature. The idea of equality is subversive of order.'' - Edmund Burke
''There is nothing more unequal, than the equal treatment of unequal people.'' - Thomas Jefferson
"It is inequality that gives enlargement to religion, to intellect, to energy, to virtue, to love and to wealth. Equality of intellect stabilizes mediocrity. Equality of wealth makes all men poor. Equality of religion destroys all creeds. Equality of energy renders all men sluggards. Equality of virtue suspends all men without the gates of Heaven. Equality of love stultifies every manly passion, destroys every family altar and mongrelizes the races of men. Equality homogenizes so that cream does not rise to the top. It puts the eagle in the hen house so that he may no longer soar." - R. Carter Pittman
"The acceptance of democracy by all European nations is deadly for the proper governorship, freedom, law, order, respect of authority and religion, and at the end will lead to chaos, out of which will appear the worldwide tyranny" - The Duke of Northumberland
"Democracy does not exist for a long time - it wastes, exhausts and destroys itself. There was never a democracy that didn't kill itself" Samuel Adams
"The American form of government is the republic. The true freedom does not exist either under despotism or excesses of democracy" Alexander Hamilton
"Democracy always leads to conflicts and instability, but never provides for the security of the citizens or their property. Usually it is very short at life, and very bloody at death" -- James Madison
"Between republic and democracy there is the same difference as between order and chaos" - John Marshall, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court
"Democracy is the rule of mobs, tempted by newspaper editors" - Ralph Waldo Emerson
''Enforced fraternity destroys liberty.'' - Frederic Bastiat
Labels: Democracy, Egalitarianism, Equality, Founding Fathers, Politics, Quotations