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"If a man went simply by what he saw, he might be tempted to affirm that the essence of democracy is melodrama."
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"Democracy is government by the people, for the people. Without the responsibility of the people, and without the involvement of the people - all you have left is GOVERNMENT."

"Change represents the real spirit of democracy and the real America."

"The ballot is stronger than the bullet."

"Our nations (India and USA) may have been shaped by differing histories, cultures, and faiths. Yet, our belief in democracy for our nations and liberty for our countrymen is common. The idea that all citizens are created equal is a central pillar of the American constitution. Our founding fathers too shared the same belief and sought individual liberty for every citizen of India."

"Self-government is in inverse ratio to numbers. The larger the constituency, the less the value of any particular vote. When he is merely one of millions, the individual elector feels himself to be impotent, a negligible quantity. The candidates he has voted into office are far away, at the top of the pyramid of power. Theoretically they are the servants of the people; but in fact it is the servants who give orders and the people, far off at the base of the great pyramid, who must obey."

"Democracy functions best when we have an active citizenry."

"A basic tenet of a healthy democracy is open dialogue and transparency."

"We always hear about the rights of democracy, but the major responsibility of it is participation."
Explore more quotes by Irving Babbitt


"The ultimate binding element in the medieval order was subordination to the divine will and its earthly representatives, notably the pope."


"Yet Aristotle's excellence of substance, so far from being associated with the grand style, is associated with something that at times comes perilously near jargon."


"We must not, however, be like the leaders of the great romantic revolt who, in their eagerness to get rid of the husk of convention, disregarded also the humane aspiration."


"A person who has sympathy for mankind in the lump, faith in its future progress, and desire to serve the great cause of this progress, should be called not a humanist, but a humanitarian, and his creed may be designated as humanitarianism."


"Tell him, on the contrary, that he needs, in the interest of his own happiness, to walk in the path of humility and self-control, and he will be indifferent, or even actively resentful."


"Perhaps as good a classification as any of the main types is that of the three lusts distinguished by traditional Christianity - the lust of knowledge, the lust of sensation, and the lust of power."


"A man needs to look, not down, but up to standards set so much above his ordinary self as to make him feel that he is himself spiritually the underdog."


"The humanities need to be defended today against the encroachments of physical science, as they once needed to be against the encroachment of theology."


"Inasmuch as society cannot go on without discipline of some kind, men were constrained, in the absence of any other form of discipline, to turn to discipline of the military type."
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