—MARGARET MEAD
No man is free who is not master of himself.
—EPICTETUS
No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother.
—MARGARET SANGER
Freedom always carries a burden of proof, always throws us back on ourselves.
—SHELBY STEELE
The Content of Our Character
Patriotism is not so much protecting the land of our fathers as preserving the land of our children.
—JOSÉ ORTEGA Y GASSET
If everything would be permitted to me, I would feel lost in this abyss of freedom.
—IGOR STRAVINSKY
Freedom is the oxygen of the soul.
—MOSHE DAYAN
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.
—THOMAS JEFFERSON
We are in bondage to the law in order that we may be free.
—CICERO
To live anywhere in the world today and be against equality because of race or color is like living in Alaska and being against snow.
—WILLIAM FAULKNER
Essays, Speeches and Public Letters
The defect of equality is that we desire it only with our superiors.
—HENRY BECQUE
It is often easier to become outraged by injustice half a world away than by oppression and discrimination half a block from home.
—CARL T. ROWAN
TO PREVENT INJUSTICE . . .
There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.
—ELIE WIESEL
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.
—REV. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.
Stride Toward Freedom
There is no happiness for people at the expense of other people.
—ANWAR EL-SADAT
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
—REV. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.
Equal rights for the sexes will be achieved only when mediocre women occupy high positions.
—FRANÇOISE GIROUD
To do injustice is more disgraceful than to suffer it.
—PLATO
A great many people in this country are worried about law-and-order. And a great many people are worried about justice. But one thing is certain: you cannot have either until you have both.
—RAMSEY CLARK
What is morally wrong cannot be politically right.
—WILLIAM GLADSTONE
In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute.
—THURGOOD MARSHALL
As long as you keep a person down, some part of you has to be down there to hold him down, so it means you cannot soar as you otherwise might.
—MARIAN ANDERSON
One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.
—BOOKER T. WASHINGTON
Justice may be blind, but she has very sophisticated listening devices.
—EDGAR ARGO
in Funny Times
Justice is the insurance we have on our lives, and obedience is the premium we pay for it.
—WILLIAM PENN
A minority group has “arrived” only when it has the right to produce some fools and scoundrels without the entire group paying for it.
—CARL T. ROWAN
We are not bitter, not because we have forgiven but because there is so much to be done that we cannot afford to waste valuable time and resources on anger.
—GOVAN MBEKI
Johannesburg Weekly Mail (South Africa)
Efficiency can never be substituted for due process. Is not a dictatorship the more “efficient” form of government?
—THURGOOD MARSHALL
It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.
—VOLTAIRE
Most lawyers who win a case advise their clients that “we have won” and, when justice has frowned upon their cause, that “you have lost.”
—LOUIS NIZER
Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice.
—H. L. MENCKEN
Prejudices
That old law about “an eye for an eye” leaves everybody blind.
—REV. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.
Stride Toward Freedom
I would uphold the law if for no other reason but to protect myself.
—THOMAS MORE
I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis upon the observance of the law than they do upon its enforcement.
—CALVIN COOLIDGE
The ultimate solution to the race problem lies in the willingness of men to obey the unenforceable.
—REV. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.
The worst form of injustice is pretended justice.
—PLATO
THE REAL BEAUTY OF DEMOCRACY . . .
The real beauty of democracy is that the average man believes he is above average.
—MORRIE BRICKMAN
Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.
—REINHOLD NIEBUHR
Democracy’s real test lies in its respect for minority opinion.
—ELLERY SEDGWICK
in Jersey Journal
The test of courage comes when we are in the minority. The test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority.
—RALPH W. SOCKMAN
Consensus means that lots of people say collectively what nobody believes individually.
—ABBA EBAN
in Montreal Gazette
Democracy without morality is impossible.
—JACK KEMP
Democracy does not guarantee equality, only equality of opportunity.
—IRVING KRISTOL
Democracy cannot survive without the guidance of a creative minority.
—HARLAN F. STONE
One has the right to be wrong in a democracy.
—CLAUDE PEPPER
Democracy is a small hard core of common agreement, surrounded by a rich variety of individual differences.
—JAMES B. CONANT
Our political institutions work remarkably well. They are designed to clang against each other. The noise is democracy at work.
—Michael Novak
I like the noise of democracy.
—JAMES BUCHANAN
Democracy, like any noncoercive relationship, rests on a shared understanding of limits.
—ELIZABETH DREW
Washington Journal: The Events of 1973–1974
Democracy means that if the doorbell rings in the early hours, it is likely to be the milkman.
—WINSTON CHURCHILL
Democracy is not a matter of sentiment, but of foresight. Any system that doesn’t take the long run into account will burn itself out in the short run.
—CHARLES YOST
I’m tired of hearing it said that democracy doesn’t work. Of course it doesn’t work. We are supposed to work it.
—ALEXANDER WOOLLCOTT
People often say that, in a democracy, decisions are made by a majority of the people. Of course, that is not true. Decisions are made by a majority of those who make themselves heard and who vote—a very different thing.
—WALTER H. JUDD
Democracy, like love, can sur
vive any attack—save neglect and indifference.
—PAUL SWEENEY
There can be no daily democracy without daily citizenship.
—RALPH NADER
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
Every private citizen has a public responsibility.
—MYRA JANCO DANIELS
in Newsweek
We will all be better citizens when voting records of our Congressmen are followed as carefully as scores of pro-football games.
—LOU ERICKSON
in Atlanta Journal
The most important political office is that of private citizen.
—LOUIS BRANDEIS
Democracy is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people.
—HARRY EMERSON FOSDICK
Democracy is not a mathematical deduction proved once and for all time. Democracy is a just faith fervently held, a commitment to be tested again and again in the fiery furnace of history.
—JACK KEMP
Democracy may not prove in the long run to be as efficient as other forms of government, but it has one saving grace: it allows us to know and say that it isn’t.
—BILL MOYERS
in Newsweek
Democracy is like a raft. It won’t sink, but you’ll always have your feet wet.
—Quoted by RUSSELL LONG in The Washingtonian
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
—MARK TWAIN
Sometimes a majority simply means that all the fools are on the same side.
—CLAUDE MCDONALD
Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.
—E. B. WHITE
in The New Yorker
It’s not the hand that signs the laws that holds the destiny of America. It’s the hand that casts the ballot.
—HARRY TRUMAN
It’s not the voting that’s democracy; it’s the counting.
—TOM STOPPARD
Jumpers
Anything that keeps a politician humble is healthy for democracy.
—MICHAEL KINSLEY
Democracy is the art of disciplining oneself so that one need not be disciplined by others.
—GEORGES CLEMENCEAU
IN POLITICS . . .
In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.
—SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
The bedfellows politics makes are never strange. It only seems that way to those who have not watched the courtship.
—KIRKPATRICK SALE
Politics has got so expensive that it takes lots of money to even get beat with nowadays.
—WILL ROGERS
Politicians and journalists share the same fate in that they often understand tomorrow the things they talk about today.
—HELMUT SCHMIDT
Politics is like coaching a football team. You have to be smart enough to understand the game but not smart enough to lose interest.
—EUGENE MCCARTHY
No man should enter politics unless he is either independently rich or independently poor.
—ROBERT JAMES MANION
Gentlemen, Players and Politicians
The idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal is the ultimate indignity to the democratic process.
—ADLAI E. STEVENSON
Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary.
—ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
The truly skillful politician is one who, when he comes to a fork in the road, goes both ways.
—MARCO A. ALMAZAN
Píldoras Anticonceptistas
What’s real in politics is what the voters decide is real.
—BEN J. WATTENBERG
Values Matter Most
Politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.
—GEN. CHARLES DE GAULLE
Everything is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke.
—WILL ROGERS
When things don’t go well they like to blame presidents; and that’s something that presidents are paid for.
—JOHN F. KENNEDY
Sincerity and competence is a strong combination. In politics, it’s everything.
in Catholic New York
When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself as public property.
—THOMAS JEFFERSON
Talk is cheap—except when Congress does it.
—CULLEN HIGHTOWER
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures.
—DANIEL WEBSTER
Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse.
—ADLAI E. STEVENSON
When the search for truth is confused with political advocacy, the pursuit of knowledge is reduced to the quest for power.
—ALSTON CHASE
In a Dark Wood
A statesman who keeps his ear permanently glued to the ground will have neither elegance of posture nor flexibility of movement.
—ABBA EBAN
Congress is continually appointing fact-finding committees, when what we really need are some fact-facing committees.
—ROGER ALLEN
in Grand Rapids Press
Asking an incumbent member of Congress to vote for term limits is a bit like asking a chicken to vote for Colonel Sanders.
—BOB INGLIS
A politician without a prepared text is like a Boris Becker without a tennis racket, a dog biscuit without a dog, or opera glasses without an opera.
—C. M. BOWRA
When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.
—P. J. O’ROURKE
Now and then an innocent man is sent to the legislature.
—KIN HUBBARD
Election year is that period when politicians get free speech mixed up with cheap talk.
—J. B. KIDD
Politicians are like ships: noisiest when lost in a fog.
—BENNETT CERF
A politician is a person who can make waves and then make you think he’s the only one who can save the ship.
—IVERN BALL
in Modern Secretary
Politicians say they’re beefing up our economy. Most don’t know beef from pork.
—HAROLD LOWMAN
Politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, go out and buy some more tunnel.
—JOHN QUINTON
It’s extremely difficult to build a political platform that supports candidates without holding up taxpayers.
—HAROLD COFFIN
Washington is a place where politicians don’t know which way is up and taxes don’t know which way is down.
—ROBERT ORBEN
in The Wall Street Journal
Politics is the art of getting money from the rich and votes from the poor, with the pretext of protecting one from the other.
—Muy Interesante
Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks.
—DOUG LARSON
To create a housing shortage in a huge country, heavily wooded, with a small population—ah, that’s proof of pure political genius.
&nbs
p; —RICHARD J. NEEDHAM
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer “Present” or “Not guilty.”
—THEODORE ROOSEVELT
IF A GOVERNMENT COMMISSION HAD WORKED ON THE HORSE . . .
If a government commission had worked on the horse, you would have had the first horse that could operate its knee joint in both directions. The only trouble is it couldn’t have stood up.
—PETER DRUCKER
Bureaucracy is the art of making the possible impossible.
—JAVIER PASCUAL SALCEDO
I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.
—WILL ROGERS
Governing a large country is like frying a small fish. You spoil it with too much poking.
—LAO-TZU
A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them.