It is a besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion

It is a besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion for law. This is the usual form in which masses of men exhibit their tyranny. – James Fenimore Cooper

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Other Quotes from
Democracy
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Democracy is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people. – Harry Emerson Fosdick

Category:
Democracy

In a democracy dissent is an act of faith. Like medicine, the test of its value is not in its taste, but in its effects. – J. William Fulbright

Category:
Democracy

At the bottom of all the tributes paid to democracy is the little man walking into the little booth with a little pencil, making a little cross on a little bit of paper. No amount of rhetoric or voluminous discussion can possibly diminish the overwhelming importance of that point. – Sir Winston Churchill

Category:
Democracy

Democracy! Bah! When I hear that word I reach for my feather Boa! – Allen Ginsberg

Category:
Democracy

Random Quotes

The clash between child and adult is never so stubborn as when the child within us confronts the adult in our child. – Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

Category:
Parents

How a minority, reaching majority, seizing authority, hates a minority! – Leonard H. Robbins

Category:
Minorities

Bad, quirky poetry might be better than some of the good stuff, because it really comes from the heart. – Cheryl Hines

Category:
Poetry

I can still smell the green of the grass crushed beneath me. Feel the damp of the dew on my elbows. Hear the birdsong. – Kristina Turner, The Self-Healing Cookbook, 2002, originally published 1987

Category:
Nature