Political campaigns are designedly made into emotional orgies which endeavor to distract attention from the real issues involved, and they actually paralyze what slight powers of cerebration man can normally muster. – James Harvey Robinson, The Human Comedy, 1937

Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule – and both commonly succeed, and are right. – H.L. Mencken, 1956

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

In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant. – Charles de Gaulle