Democracy- christiansquoting.org.uk

Democracy is mob rule, but with income taxes.

Why don't more people vote? Is it ignorance or apathy?
I don't know, and I don't care.

It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority. For there is a reserve of latent power in the masses which, if it is called into play, the minority can seldom resist. But from the absolute will of an entire people there is no appeal, no redemption, no refuge but treason. -- Lord Acton

A democracy is a government in the hands of men of low birth, no property, and vulgar employments. - Aristotle, Rhetoric, Independency

Universal suffrage is the most monstrous and iniquitous of tyrannies-because the force of numbers is most brutal, having neither courage nor talent. Paul Bourquet, Le Diciple, 1889

Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.--Edmund Burke to the voters of Bristol, 1774

To drive men from independence to live on alms, is itself great cruelty.
Edmund Burke Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790

The devil was the first democrat. --Byron

If pigs could vote, the man with the slop bucket would be elected swineherd every time, no matter how much slaughtering he did on the side. --Orson Scott Card

The next time they give you all that civic bull.... about voting, keep in mind that Hitler was elected in a full, free democratic election.- George Carlin

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, House of Commons, 11 Nov. 1947

The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter. Winston Churchill

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. - James Fenimore Cooper

The tendency of democracies is, in all things, to mediocrity, since the tastes, knowledge, and principles of the majority form the tribunal of appeal.
James Fenimore Cooper

Nor is the people's judgement always true,
The most may err as grossly as the few."
John Dryden, _Absalom and Achitophel_

Perhaps the fact that we have seen millions voting themselves into complete dependence on a tyrant has made our generation understand that to choose one's government is not necessarily to secure freedom. -- F.A. Hayek

In each age it is necessary to adapt to the popular mythology. At one times kings were anointed by Deity, so the problem was to see to it that Deity anointed the right candidate. In this age the myth is 'the will of the people'.
Professor Bernardo de la Paz on recently elected congress, in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", by Robert Heinlein.

The Masses are Asses - Cornelious C. Janzen

That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.--- Thomas Jefferson

Fifty-one percent of a nation can establish a totalitarian regime, suppress minorities and still remain democratic. -- Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

..there are two opposite reasons for being a democrat. You may think all men so good that they deserve a share in the government of the commonwealth, and so wise that the commonwealth needs their advice. That is, in my opinion, the false, romantic doctrine of democracy. On the other hand, you may believe fallen men to be so wicked that not one of them can be trusted with any irresponsible power over his fellows. ----C. S. Lewis "Membership" Sobernost #31 (June 1945)

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 the government. The danger of defending democracy on these grounds is that they are not true....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. CS Lewis

When the people have no tyrant, their own public opinion becomes one. Lord Lytton

.no man shall be admitted to the body politic but such as are members of some of the churches within the limits' of the colony. - The General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony 18 May 1631

Democracy is the art of running the circus from the monkey cage. -- H.L. Mencken

Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.--H.L. Mencken

Democracy is a form of religion; it is the worship of jackals by jackasses. -- H.L. Mencken

Public opinion is held in reverence. It settles everything. Some think it is the voice of God.--Mark Twain

The essence of democracy is not that everyone makes and administers laws but that lawgivers and rulers should be dependent on the people's will in such a way that they may be peaceably changed if conflict occurs.-- Ludwig von Mises

Democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.--Plato, The Republic. Book VIII. 558

Democracy: The substitution of election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. --George Bernard Shaw

A democracy is a state in which the poor, gaining the upper hand, kill some and banish others, and then divide the offices among the remaining citizens equally, usually by lot.-- Plato, The Republic, VIII

Because in the oligarchical State they are disqualified and driven from office, and therefore they cannot train or gather strength; whereas in a democracy they are almost the entire ruling power, and while the keener sort speak and act, the rest keep buzzing about the bema and do not suffer a word to be said on the other side; hence in democracies almost everything is managed by the drones. -- Plato, "The Republic"

When 25 percent of the population believe the President should be impeached and 51 percent of the population believe in UFOs, you may or may not need a new President, but you definitely need a new population. -Harry Reasoner

"Senator, you have the vote of every thinking person!""
Adlai E. Stevenson called back ""That's not enough, madam, we need a majority

Enemies within are those who do not believe in the democratic system but who will use violence or intimidation - some means other than democracy - to attain their ends. - Margaret Thatcher, speaking on Channel 4 TV quoted in Brenda Maddox, Maggie the First Lady, p160

When Abraham Lincoln spoke in his famous Gettysburg speech of 1863 of 'government of the people, by the people, and for the people,' he gave the world a neat definition of democracy which has since been widely and enthusiastically adopted. But what he enunciated as a form of government was not in itself especially Christian, for nowhere in the Bible is the word democracy mentioned. Ideally, when Christians meet, as Christians, to take counsel together, their purpose is not (or should not be) to ascertain what is the mind of the majority but what is the mind of the Holy Spirit - something which may be quite different.
Nevertheless I am an enthusiast for democracy. And I take that position, not because I believe majority opinion is inevitably right or true - indeed no majority can take away God-given human rights - but because I believe it most effectively safeguards the value of the individual, and, more than any other system, restrains the abuse of power by the few. And that is a Christian concept.
Margaret Thatcher, speech to the Church of Scotland General Assembly, 21.5.88

How far would Moses have gone if he had taken a poll in Egypt?- Harry Truman

Public opinion is held in reverence. It settles everything. Some think it is the voice of God.--Mark Twain

From bondage to spiritual faith,from spiritual faith to great courage,
from great courage to liberty,
from liberty to abundance,
from abundance to selfishness,
from selfishness to complacency,
from complacency to dependency,
from dependency back into bondage.
Alexander Fraser Tytler ,Lord Woodhouselee (1748-1813), "The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic"
Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.--Oscar Wilde

The Bible is for the government of the people, by the people, and for the people. --John Wycliffe (ca.1330-1384)
The only way to settle questions of an ideological nature or controversial issues among the people is by the democratic method, the method of discussion, of criticism, of persuasion and education, and not by the method of coercion or repression. --Mao Ze-dong, "On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People", 1957