I collect quotations at my Wish I’d Said That (WIST) site. Aaand, every couple of years, on election day, I pull out some thoughts from the past that I find pertinent to our present.
This one’s a bit longer than usual, but it keeps me off the streets and out of trouble.
Links provided are to the WIST site, which often has original sourcing and additional notes on each quotation.
Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves — and the only way they could do this is by not voting.
¶ Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) US President (1933-1945)
Radio address (5 Oct 1944)
It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.
¶ John Philpot Curran (1750-1817) Irish lawyer and politician
Speech before Privy Council, Dublin (10 Jul 1790)
Whatever the laws may provide, however lofty may be their sentiments, a man without a vote is a man without protection.
¶ Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) American politician, educator, US President (1963-69)
(Attributed)
The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.
¶ Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
Annual Message to Congress (1 Dec 1862)
This is a column for everyone who ever said, “I’m sorry, I’m just not interested in politics,” or, “There’s nothing I can do about it,” or, “Hey, they’re all crooks anyway.” … I’ve got one word for all of you: Katrina. … This, friends, is why we need to pay attention to government policies, not political personalities, and to know whereon we vote. It is about our lives.
¶ Molly Ivins (1944-2007) American writer, political columnist [Mary Tyler Ivins]
The Progressive (Oct 2005)
Build movements. Vote with your values, but vote strategically. Voting isn’t a Valentine. It’s a chess move.
¶ Rebecca Solnit (b. 1961) American writer, historian, activist
Facebook (17 Oct 2016)
Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.
¶ George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
(Attributed)
If a man has a genuine, sincere, hearty wish to get rid of his liberty, if he is really bent upon becoming a slave, nothing can stop him. And the temptation is to some natures a very great one. Liberty is often a heavy burden on a man. It involves that necessity for perpetual choice which is the kind of labor men have always dreaded. In common life we shirk it by forming habits, which take the place of self-determination. In politics party-organization saves us the pains of much thinking before deciding how to cast our vote.
¶ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894) American poet, essayist, scholar
Elsie Venner, ch. 18 (1859)
If there is distrust out there — and there is — perhaps it is because there is so much partisan jockeying for advantage at the expense of public policy. At times it feels as if American politics consists largely of candidates without ideas, hiring consultants without convictions, to stage campaigns without content. Increasingly the result is elections without voters.
¶ Gerald R. Ford (1913-2006) US President, (1974-77) [b. Leslie Lynch King, Jr.]
Speech, Profiles in Courage Award Acceptance, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library (2001)
There are worse things than losing an election; the worst thing is to lose one’s convictions and not tell the people the truth.
¶ Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965) American diplomat, statesman
(Attributed)
We’d all like t’vote fer th’best man, but he’s never a candidate.
¶ Kin Hubbard (1868-1930) American caricaturist and humorist [Frank McKinney Hubbard]
Abe Martin’s Primer (1914)
When you have to make a choice and don’t make it, that is in itself a choice.
¶ William James (1842-1910) American psychologist and philosopher
(Attributed)
Since the beginning of our American history, we have been engaged in change — in a perpetual peaceful revolution — a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly adjusting itself to changing conditions — without the concentration camp or the quick-lime in the ditch. The world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society.
¶ Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) US President (1933-1945)
Annual Message to Congress (6 Jan 1941)
The people — the people — are the rightful masters of both Congresses, and courts — not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert it.
¶ Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) American lawyer, politician, US President (1861-65)
Speech, Cooper Union, New York City (27 Feb 1860)
Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.
¶ John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) US President (1825-29)
(Attributed)
The single most dangerous thing you can do in politics is shut off information from people who don’t agree with you. Surround yourself with sycophants, listen only to the yea-sayers … then stick a fork in it, you’re done.
¶ Molly Ivins (1944-2007) American writer, political columnist [Mary Tyler Ivins]
“Election Denial” (3 Apr. 2001)
Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
¶ Winston Churchill (1874-1965) British statesman and author
Speech, House of Commons (11 Nov 1947)
Pessimism about man serves to maintain the status quo. It is a luxury for the affluent, a sop to the guilt of the politically inactive, a comfort to those who continue to enjoy the amenities of privilege.
¶ Leon Eisenberg (1922-2009) American psychiatrist and medical educator
“The Human Nature of Human Nature,” Science (14 Apr 1972)
Bad officials are elected by good people who do not vote.
¶ George Jean Nathan (1892-1958) American editor and critic
(Attributed)
But I go on this great republican principle, that the people will have virtue and intelligence to select men of virtue and wisdom. Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wicked situation. No theoretical checks, no form of government, can render us secure. To suppose that any for of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea. If there be sufficient virtue and intelligence in the community, it will be exercised in the selection of these men; so that we do not depend on their virtue, or put confidence in our rulers, but in the people who are to choose them.
¶ James Madison (1751-1836) American statesman, political theorist, US President (1809-17)
Speech at the Virginia Convention (20 Jun 1788)
The idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal — that you can gather votes like box tops — is, I think, the ultimate indignity to the democratic process.
¶ Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965) American diplomat, statesman
Comment, after his presidential nomination acceptance speech, Chicago (18 Aug 1956)
But freedom isn’t free. It shouldn’t be a bragging point that, “Oh, I don’t get involved in politics,” as if that makes someone cleaner. No, that makes you derelict of duty in a republic. Liars and panderers in government would have a much harder time of it if so many people didn’t insist on their right to remain ignorant and blindly agreeable.
¶ William “Bill” Maher (b. 1956) American comedian, political commentator, critic, television host.
When You Ride Alone You Ride With Bin Laden (2002)
We are not a cynical people. The will to believe lingers on. We like to think that heroes can emerge from obscurity, as they sometimes do; that elections do matter, even though the process is at least part hokum; that through politics we can change our society and maybe even find a cause to believe in.
¶ Ronald Steel (b. 1931) American writer, historian, and professor
“The Vanishing Campaign Biography,” New York Times (5 Aug 1984)
CALVIN: When I grow up, I’m not going to read the newspaper and I’m not going to follow complex issues and I’m not going to vote. That way I can complain when the government doesn’t represent me. Then, when everything goes down the tubes, I can say the system doesn’t work and justify my further lack of participation.
HOBBES: An ingeniously self-fulfilling plan.
CALVIN: It’s a lot more fun to blame things than to fix them.
¶ Bill Watterson (b. 1958) American cartoonist
Calvin & Hobbes
The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.
¶ Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) American politician, educator, US President (1963-69)
Speech, Signing of the Voting Rights Act (6 Aug 1965)
Monarchy is like a sleek craft, it sails along well until some bumbling captain runs it into the rocks. Democracy, on the other hand, is like a raft. It never goes down but, dammit, your feet are always wet.
¶ Fisher Ames (1758-1808) American politician, orator
(Attributed)
Every honest and God-fearing man is a mighty factor in the future of the Republic. Educated men, business men, professional men, should be the last to shirk the responsibilities attaching to citizenship in a free government. They should be practical and helpful — mingling with the people — not selfish and exclusive. It is not necessary that every man should enter into politics, or adopt it as a profession, or seek political preferment, but it is the duty of every man to give personal attention to his political duties. They are as sacred and binding as any we have to perform.
¶ William McKinley (1843-1901) US President (1897-1901)
Speech, Woodstock, Connecticut (4 July 1891)
As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.
¶ Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) American lawyer, politician, US President (1861-65)
“On Slavery and Democracy” (fragment) (1858?)
It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.
[Я считаю, что совершенно неважно, кто и как будет в партии голосовать; но вот что чрезвычайно важно, это – кто и как будет считать голоса.]
¶ Josef Stalin (1879-1953) Georgian revolutionary and Soviet dictator
Comment (1923)
The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.
¶ Robert M. Hutchins (1899-1977) American educator and educational philosopher
Great Books: The Foundation of a Liberal Education (1954)
Democracy does not give the people the most skillful government, but it produces what the ablest governments are frequently unable to create: namely, an all-pervading and restless activity, a superabundant force, and an energy which is inseparable from it and which may, however unfavorable circumstances may be, produce wonders.
¶ Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) French writer, diplomat, politician
Democracy in America, 1.14 (1835) [tr. Reeve and Bowen (1862)]
All free governments are managed by the combined wisdom and folly of the people.
¶ James A. Garfield (1831-1881) US President (1881), lawyer, lay preacher, educator
Letter to B. A. Hinsdale (21 Apr 1880)
Look at the tyranny of party — at what is called party allegiance, party loyalty — a snare invented by designing men for selfish purposes — and which turns voters into chattels, slaves, rabbits, and all the while their masters, and they themselves are shouting rubbish about liberty, independence, freedom of opinion, freedom of speech, honestly unconscious of the fantastic contradiction; and forgetting or ignoring that their fathers and the churches shouted the same blasphemies a generation earlier when they were closing their doors against the hunted slave, beating his handful of humane defenders with Bible texts and billies, and pocketing the insults and licking the shoes of his Southern Master.
¶ Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
“The Character of Man” (23 Jan 1906), in The Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1 (2010)
The deadliest enemies of nations are not their foreign foes; they always dwell within their borders. And from these internal enemies civilization is always in need of being saved. The nation blest above all nations is she in whom the civic genius of the people does the saving day by day, by acts without external picturesqueness; by speaking, writing, voting reasonably; by smiting corruption swiftly; by good temper between parties; by the people knowing true men when they see them, and preferring them as leaders to rabid partisans or empty quacks.
¶ William James (1842-1910) American psychologist and philosopher
“Robert Gould Shaw: Oration upon the Unveiling of the Shaw Monument” (31 May 1897)
Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich by promising to protect each from the other.
¶ Oscar Ameringer (1870-1943) German-American political activist, Socialist organizer, author, politician
The American Guardian
Another point of disagreement is not factual but involves the ethical/moral principle […] sometimes referred to as the “politics of moral witness.” Generally associated with the religious left, secular leftists implicitly invoke it when they reject LEV on the grounds that “a lesser of two evils is still evil.” Leaving aside the obvious rejoinder that this is exactly the point of lesser evil voting — i.e. to do less evil, what needs to be challenged is the assumption that voting should be seen a form of individual self-expression rather than as an act to be judged on its likely consequences. […] The basic moral principle at stake is simple: not only must we take responsibility for our actions, but the consequences of our actions for others are a far more important consideration than feeling good about ourselves.
¶ Noam Chomsky (b. 1928) American linguist and activist
“An Eight Point Brief for LEV (Lesser Evil Voting)” (15 Jun 2016) [with John Halle]
I am a democrat because I believe in the Fall of Man. I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in government. The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they’re not true. And whenever their weakness is exposed, the people who prefer tyranny make capital out of the exposure. I find that they’re not true without looking further than myself. I don’t deserve a share in governing a hen-roost, much less a nation. Nor do most people — all the people who believe advertisements, and think in catchwords and spread rumours. The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.
¶ C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer and scholar [Clive Staples Lewis]
“Equality,” The Spectator (27 Aug 1943)
Let us not be afraid to help each other — let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and Senators and Congressmen and Government officials but the voters of this country.
¶ Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) US President (1933-1945)
Speech, Marietta, Ohio (8 Jul 1938)
Many of the issues of civil rights are very complex and most difficult. But about this there can and should be no argument. Every American citizen must have the right to vote. … Yet the harsh fact is that in many places in this country men and women are kept from voting simply because they are Negroes. … No law that we now have on the books … can insure the right to vote when local officials are determined to deny it. … There is no Constitutional issue here. The command of the Constitution is plain. There is no moral issue. It is wrong—deadly wrong—to deny any of your fellow Americans the right to vote in this country. There is no issue of States’ rights or National rights. There is only the struggle for human rights.
¶ Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) American politician, educator, US President (1963-69)
Speech, Congress (15 Mar 1965)
It is the besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion for law. This is the usual form in which masses of men exhibit their tyranny.
¶ James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) American novelist
“On the Disadvantages of Democracy,” The American Democrat (1838)
The test of a democracy is not the magnificence of buildings or the speed of automobiles or the efficiency of air transportation, but rather the care given to the welfare of all the people.
¶ Helen Keller (1880-1968) American author and lecturer
“Try Democracy,” The Home Magazine, Vol. 11, # 4 (Apr 1935)
It is high time that we stopped thinking politically as Republicans and Democrats about elections and started thinking patriotically as Americans about national security based on individual freedom. It is high time that we all stopped being tools and victims of totalitarian techniques — techniques that, if continued here unchecked, will surely end what we have come to cherish as the American Way of Life.
¶ Margaret Chase Smith (1897-1965) American politician (US Senator, Maine)
“Declaration of Conscience,” Congressional Record, vol. 96, 81st Congress, 2d. sess. (1 Jun 1950)
Political strategies and tactics are not jealous lovers. You don’t have to be monogamous. Direct Action will not feel betrayed if you also vote from time to time — you can be poly in your tactics. And I am. Of course I vote! If you’re a woman, or a person of color, or a person who doesn’t own property, or even a white male who doesn’t belong to the nobility, centuries of struggle and many deaths have bought you the right to vote. I vote to keep faith with peasant rebels and suffragist hunger strikers and civil rights workers braving the lynch mobs of the South, if for no other reason. But there is another reason — because who we vote for has an enormous impact on real peoples’ lives.
¶ Starhawk (b. 1951) American writer, activist, feminist theologian [b. Miriam Simos]
“Pre-Election Day Thoughts,” blog post (7 Nov 2016)
Let us not be mistaken: the best government in the world, the best parliament and the best president, cannot achieve much on their own. And it would be wrong to expect a general remedy from them alone. Freedom and democracy include participation and therefore responsibility from us all.
¶ Václav Havel (1936-2011) Czech playwright, essayist, dissident, politician
“New Year’s Address to the Nation” (1 Jan 1990)
There has been a certain cynical genius to what some of these folks have done in Washington. What they’ve realized is, if we don’t get anything done, then people are going to get cynical about government and its possibilities of doing good for everybody. And since they don’t believe in government, that’s a pretty good thing. And the more cynical people get, the less they vote. And if turnout is low and people don’t vote, that pretty much benefits those who benefit from the status quo.
¶ Barack Obama (b. 1961) American politician, US President (2009-2017)
Speech, Purchase, New York (29 Aug 2014)
The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.
¶ Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) French writer, diplomat, politician
Democracy in America, Vol. 1, ch. 13 (1835)
Democracy postulates community of interest or loyal patriotism. When these are absent it cannot long exist.
¶ William Ralph Inge (1860-1954) English prelate [Dean Inge]
“Our Present Discontents,” Outspoken Essays: First Series (1919)
This is the affirmation on which democracy rests … [W]e can all be responsible … We become what we do. So does the world we live in, if enough of us do it — whether “it” be good or detestable. This is the burden of freedom: that it is all our fault or our credit.
¶ Herbert Agar (1897-1980) American journalist and historian
“The Perils of Democracy” (1966)
To give the victory to the right, not bloody bullets, but peaceful ballots only, are necessary.
¶ Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) American lawyer, politician, US President (1861-65)
Speech fragment (c. 18 May 1858)
