John le Carre Quotes

What in fact takes place in an election is that two hand picked candidates are propped up before the citizenry, each candidate having been selected by a very small group of politically active people. A minority of the people... then elects one of these hand picked people to rule itself and the majority.

Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates.

Elections are not really about political choices. The choice is usually between tweedle-de-dum and tweedle-de-dummer.

Under universal suffrage the elected are those who know best how to take in the masses. The minority, which may happen to be the half minus one, is sacrificed.

Many people in the UN vote and then go home where nobody votes.

Our democracy is but a name. We vote? What does that mean? It means that we choose between two bodies of real, though not avowed, autocrats. We choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee.…

Elections, in India, are 'over to the people' time. And it is probably the one time in their lives when politicians, and political parties, of all hues walk the razor edge of panic.

Everyone wants to vote for the best and most qualified man, but he never runs for office.

Take it from me: Elections matter.

I think you have to [vote] and the reason you have to go vote is an important one, and that is because the day you vote is the day that you will feel the most ineffectual you will feel all year.

We think that democracy can change a lot of things, but we're being fooled, because democracy is not the election. We've been taught that democracy is having elections. And it isn't. Elections are the most horrendous aspect of democracy. It's the most mundane, trivial, disappointing, dirty aspect.

In my lifetime, we've gone from Eisenhower to George W. Bush. We've gone from John F. Kennedy to Al Gore. If this is evolution, I believe that in twelve years, we'll be voting for plants.

I have always voted for who I believed was the best person.

I trust Canadians' capacity to determine who will sit in their Parliament.

People are free to campaign and they will be free to vote. There won't be any soldiers, you know, at the queues. Anyone who has the right to vote is free to go and cast his vote anywhere in his own area, in his own constituency.

They have not always elected the best leaders, particularly after a long period in which they have not used this facility of free election. You tend to lose the habit.

And in Canada we, you know, it costs us three or $400 million to have an election. You know, it's always been my position that we shouldn't complain about that; that's the price of admission for a living in a great democracy.

When push comes to shove, people vote alone.

Every democracy is constructed day-to-day. And the electoral process reduces and minimalizes every single aspect of human complexity. We're putting it into pamphlets. We're doing a publicity show. We're becoming symbols.

Canadians want to elect good people to be their voice in Ottawa.

In our democracy, political parties have to raise funds to campaign and put their policies to the electorate, and as a proud supporter of the Labour Party, I am happy to be in a position where I can make a contribution to its ongoing work.

People may be due the benefits of a democratic electoral process. But in the United States, content curators appropriately have a First Amendment right to present their content as they see fit.

To make democracy work, we must be a notion of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.

If the gods had intended for people to vote, they would have given us candidates.

Voting is a civic sacrament.