top of page
"It means that, in fact, it's - whether fascist is the right word I don't know - more of a plutocracy than anything resembling a democracy; it has become a nation controlled by a very small, very wealthy elite."
Standard
Customized
Exlpore more Democracy quotes

"If we are to keep democracy, there must be a commandment: Thou shalt not ration justice."

"Passive fatalism can never be the role of a revolutionary party, like the Social Democracy."

"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 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."

"Democracy is only a dream: it should be put in the same category as Arcadia, Santa Claus, and Heaven."

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

"Democracy in China is like Viagra; no such thing as free elections."
Explore more quotes by Peter Singer

"I'm not overly alarmist about it, but I do think there are some worrying signs, like the growing accumulation of wealth by a very small proportion of the population, plus elections in the US are much more dominated by money than anywhere else calling itself a democracy."

"All the arguments to prove man's superiority cannot shatter this hard fact: in suffering the animals are our equals."

"We see things like reciprocity which are fairly central to our view of ethics. But if you're talking about a set of worked-out rules on what we are supposed to do then, yes, it is a human product."

"I don't think nationalism is alone holding the field; it's in contention with a lot of different things."

"At the descriptive level, certainly, you would expect different cultures to develop different sorts of ethics and obviously they have; that doesn't mean that you can't think of overarching ethical principles you would want people to follow in all kinds of places."

"In a situation where many national leaders do the same thing and look out for national interests, and with an issue like global warming, you're likely to get no solution, so I think you have to have some kind of ethical trump on some of those issues."

"The idea that we can actually have an impact on places more or less instantly, too, by responding in some way or not responding, I think, also makes it true."

"I suppose what's happened recently has confirmed suspicions I voiced in the book, and I think made clearer some of those things that I point out. For instance I have a section of the book where I talk about the possibility of torture."
bottom of page