People think they have taken quite an extraordinarily bold step forward when they have rid themselves of belief in hereditary mona...rchy and swear by the democratic republic. In reality, however, the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and indeed in the democratic republic no less than in the monarchy.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In a democracy, the will of the people is supreme. In a republic, it is not the will of the people but the rational consensus of t...he people--a rational consensus which is implicit in the term consent--which governs the people. That is to say, in a democracy, popular passion may rule--may, though it need not--but in a republic, popular passion is regarded as unfit to rule, and the precautions are taken to see that it is subdued rather than sovereign. In a democracy all politicians are, to some degree, demagogues: They appeal to people's prejudices and passions, they incite their expectations by making reckless promises, they endeavor to ingratiate themselves with the electorate in every possible way. In a republic, there are not supposed to be such politicians, only statesmen--sober, unglamorous, thoughtful men who are engaged in a kind of perpetual conversation with the citizenry.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There is no calamity which a great nation can invite which equals that which follows a supine submission to wrong and injustice an...d the consequent loss of national self-respect and honor, beneath which are shielded and defended a people's safety and greatness.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is part of the nature of consciousness, of how the mental apparatus works, that free reason is only a very occasional function ...of people's "thinking" and that much of the process is made of reactions as standardized as those of the keys on a typewriter.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Our opposition will never understand the Democratic Party. Our Party is--to the unpracticed eyes of the old Republican Tories--a m...ysterious contraption that usually seems to be moving in a thousand directions. What they don't know is what hurts them. For all that movement in the Democratic Party is caused by the internal combustion of creative ferment, of ideas, of people vigorously committed to the proposition that change and social progress are not only to be desired; they are necessities of twentieth-century America.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Here I am.... You get the parts of me you like and also the parts that make you uncomfortable. You have to understand that other p...eople's comfort is no longer my job. I am no longer a flight attendant.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Most of us are conditioned for many years to have a political veiwpoint--Republican or Democratic, liberal, conservative, or moder...ate. The fact of the matter is that most of the problems ... that we now face are technical problems, are administrative problems. They are very sophisticated judgments, which do not lend themselves to the great sort of passionate movements which have stirred this country so often in the past. [They] deal with questions which are now beyond the comprehension of most men.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Of the best rulers The people only know that they exist; The next best they love and praise The next they fear; And the next they ...revile. When they do not command the people's faith, Some will lose faith in them, And then they resort to oaths! But of the best when their task is accomplished, their work done, The people all remark, "We have done it ourselves."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »