Robert M. Hutchins Quotes

Democracy is necessitated by the fact that all men are sinners; it is made possible by the fact that we know it.

In the end the problem isn't that you have the wrong sort of government for the People, but that you have the wrong sort of People.

Democracy is a difficult art of government, demanding of its citizens high ratios of courage and literacy, and at the moment we lack both the necessary habits of mind and a sphere of common reference.

Africa must develop a genuine culture of alternation and opposition, without which democracy in any country, including the West, cannot exist.

I would like to have insights into things like government, all those big ideas that you brought up that I simply don't have ideas about. I would like to be able to since so many people discuss them, but I don't want to work at them. I don't think my ambition is that strong in that direction.

Politics is not just about voting one day every four years. Politics is the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the road we walk on.

There is always the risk in advocating for democracy that the first people to wake up might not be your team, but that is a risk worth taking. I would rather have citizens I don't agree with organized and active than an oligarchy of people that I agree with.

I'm a citizen in a democracy. To call me an activist would be redundant. It's not a spectator sport. If we all become non-participants, it no longer works.

I hate to create cynicism about politicians. We just need to invade. Regular people need to run for office and keep their balls and ovaries intact.

Democracy, in its best state, is but the politics of Bedlam; while kept chained, its thoughts are frantic, but when it breaks loose, it kills the keeper, fires the building, and perishes.

The survival of American democracy depends less on the size of its armies than on the capacity of its individual citizens to rely... on the strength of their own thought.

It is not enough to profess faith in the democratic process; we must do something about it.

The practice of our democracy depends on a sense of, and knowledge of, history in the same way that playing in the World Series requires a bat and a ball.

Democracy can be sustained and developed only by people who understand its essence.

You can't afford to hate politics. The politics of this country is democracy. Democracy is by the people, of the people and for the people. The day people stop taking active part in the politics of this country, democracy will not survive.

Democracy is the most demanding of all forms of government in terms of the energy, imagination, and public spirit required of the individual.

I would say democracy once meant an organizational society and a state, in which the individual citizen is - feels - responsible, and acts responsibly, and participates in decision-making.

If you give up on politics, you're giving up on democracy. And if you give up on democracy, you're basically saying to the moneyed interests, the powerful people and institutions of society, take it all. That's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Then we give up. Then we are 100 percent plutocracy.

We all need to provide the checks and balances for democracy.

There is little hope for democracy if the hearts of men and women in democratic societies cannot be touched by a call to something greater than themselves.

Politics matters. Ideas matter. Democracy matters, because all of us need to be able to make a difference.

Democracy is not a form of government, but a form of social organisation.

Democracy in the contemporary world demands, among other things, an educated and informed people.

Democracy is not simply a question of structures. It is a state of mind. It is an activity.

Bernard Shaw remains the only model we have of what the citizen of a democracy should be: an informed participant in all things we deem important to the society and the individual.