Dick Durbin Quotes

I can't strong-arm my members. They vote the way they want to.

If everyone in the party has to agree on everything, that’s going to be a very small party.

Democracy is finding proximate solutions to insoluble problems.

That's what the Senate is about. It's the last bastion of minority rights, where a minority can be heard, where a minority can stand on its feet, one individual if necessary, and speak until he falls into the dust.

The practical core of democracy, defined functionally, is the peaceful exchange of power between different groups of powerful political players arranged in parties.

Power is action; the electoral principle is discussion. No political action is possible when discussion is permanently established.

There is a democratic process in the party, and that can be operated at any time. But am I going to resign? No. Of course not. No. No. I will carry on.

Political parties don't work when people just announce what they are doing and expect everyone else to follow.

Without the three-fifths rule, there wouldn't have been a Constitution of the United States - not one that governed the American South, at any rate - because the South wouldn't have ratified it.

If a democracy is to remain real and stable, the majority must be humane and farsighted enough to take care of minorities who have serious objections to the majorities point of view and who, because of lack of numbers, do not have the political strength to impose their own policy solutions through their own political power.

In government, consensus is more important than command; persuasion not only works better than arrogance, it's vital to the democratic process.

Democratic government consists of listening, deciding, persuading.

The needs of the many cannot be met by the party of the few.

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?

Majorities without discipline are not majorities.

Campaigns are not, and should not be, democratic processes. Otherwise nothing would ever get done.

Parliamentary government is simply a mild and disguised form of compulsion. We agree to try strength by counting heads instead of breaking heads, but the principle is exactly the same... The minority gives way not because it is convinced that it is wrong, but because it is convinced that it is a minority.

When I face an issue of great import that cleaves both constituents and colleagues, I always take the same approach. I engage in deep deliberation and quiet contemplation. I wait to the last available minute and then I always vote with the losers. Because, my friend, the winners never remember and the losers never forget.

We'll vote when we have the votes.

I believe in party sponsorship. I believe in Party government as distinguished from personal government, individual, dictatorial, autocratic or what not. In a citizenship of more than 100 million it is impossible to reach an agreement upon all the questions. Parties are formed by those who reach a consensus of opinion.

The ballot box is a license to govern, not a mandate to rule.

That’s one difficulty about a democracy. Nothing ever gets decided—even after its been decided.

The Rules Committee is the place that Democracy comes to die.

It is impossible for a Minister to please the many without displeasing the few

The American people would much rather vote for a leader who is strong and wrong than for one who is weak and right.