Thomas Babington Macaulay Quotes

[Commenting on America:] In no other country is the ideal side of public life so ignored by the mass and repudiated by its leaders.

A democracy requires a certain amount of common ground.

Democracy abhors a vacuum.

Democracy is finding proximate solutions to insoluble problems.

If a man went simply by what he saw, he might be tempted to affirm that the essence of democracy is melodrama.

The way people in democracies think of the government as something different from themselves is a real handicap. And, of course, sometimes the government confirms their opinion.

Voters will decide how they want to be governed.

You know, we're taught that in a democracy power comes from being elected.

My message is that Democracy is not an alien invention. It is a way of solving problems in our society.

A democratic home is the foundation of a democratic state.

Majority rule rests on numbers; democracy rests on the well-grounded assumption that society is neither a collection of units nor an organism but a network of human relations.

Discussion is the bedrock of American democracy.

Democracy is only tolerable because no other system is.

Now we are governed by gentlemen.

If the people be governors, who shall be governed?

Democracy doesn't mean electing a dictator every five years.

Democratic processes require time.

In a Democracy, look how many … many powerful Orators there are with the people.

They which find themselves grieved under a democracy, call it anarchy.

Are the governors such exceptionally gifted men as to enable them … to represent the masses and act in the interests of all men better than all men would be able to act for themselves?

Democracy is much too important to be left to public opinion.

Our democracy is only as good as the people who are willing to step up and run for office.

In a democracy, if the people don’t vote, the policies are made by others….The major decisions of our society are going to be made by our elected officials, like it or not.

Democracy, in a word, is meant to be an aristocracy which has broadened into a universal aristocracy.

Democracy in a nation of 300 million people can be noisy and messy and complicated. And when you try to do big things and make big changes, it stirs passions and controversy. That's just how it is.