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"The tendency of democracies is, in all things, to mediocrity."
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"Democracy is timelessly human, and timelessness always implies a certain amount of potential youthfulness."
"You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution."
"Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men."
"Democracy is only a dream: it should be put in the same category as Arcadia, Santa Claus, and Heaven."
"I confess I enjoy democracy immensely. It is incomparably idiotic, and hence incomparably amusing."
"Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses."
"Democracy in China is like Viagra; no such thing as free elections."
Explore more quotes by James F. Cooper
"Candor is a proof of both a just frame of mind, and of a good tone of breeding. It is a quality that belongs equally to the honest man and to the gentleman."
"The disposition of all power is to abuses, nor does it at all mend the matter that its possessors are a majority."
"The common faults of American language are an ambition of effect, a want of simplicity, and a turgid abuse of terms."
"All that a good government aims at... is to add no unnecessary and artificial aid to the force of its own unavoidable consequences, and to abstain from fortifying and accumulating social inequality as a means of increasing political inequalities."
"Slavery is no more sinful, by the Christian code, than it is sinful to wear a whole coat, while another is in tatters, to eat a better meal than a neighbor, or otherwise to enjoy ease and plenty, while our fellow creatures are suffering and in want."
"Party leads to vicious, corrupt and unprofitable legislation, for the sole purpose of defeating party."
"It is the besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion for law. This is the usual form in which the masses of men exhibit their tyranny."
"It is a governing principle of nature, that the agency which can produce most good, when perverted from its proper aim, is most productive of evil."
"Individuality is the aim of political liberty. By leaving the citizen as much freedom of action and of being as comports with order and the rights of others, the institutions render him truly a freeman. He is left to pursue his means of happiness in his own manner."
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