Henry A. Wallace Quotes

Ignorance is an evil weed, which dictators may cultivate among their dupes, but which no democracy can afford among its citizens.

Television has made dictatorship impossible but democracy unbearable.

Machiavelli had some cold tricks for people who wanted to be demagogues and wanted to take over the world.

Propaganda is to a democracy what violence is to a dictatorship.

Dictatorships are one-way streets. Democracy boasts two-way traffic.

Demagogues are the mob's lackeys.

Democracy is like a street car. You get off when you reach your destination.

Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.

The control of information is something the elite always does, particularly in a despotic form of government. Information, knowledge, is power. If you can control information, you can control people.

Democracy consists of choosing your dictators, after they've told you what you think it is you want to hear.

My experience and what scant understanding of politics I possess have convinced me that our peoples will only find well-being under compulsion; but my repugnance for compulsion is so great that I am loath to employ it even to achieve their well-being.

The ultimate failures of dictatorship cost humanity far more than the temporary failures of democracy.

There is nothing left for Mankind but a Republic.

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

Democracy is the least static form of society. Its basis is reason not authority.

The delusion of the people is necessary to the dominant party. I see the extent to which that delusion has been already carried, and I see there is no length to which it may not be pushed by a party in possession of the revenues and the legal authorities of the United States

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

In every age the vilest specimens of human nature are to be found among demagogues.

We need to learn democracy. Everything takes time.

If any country wants to develop, it must practice democracy. If I look around the world, I see that the prosperous countries practice democracy.

Without education, you can’t have democracy.

No truly sophisticated proponent of repression would be stupid enough to shatter the facade of democratic institutions.

Be alert that dictators have always played on the natural human tendency to blame others and to oversimplify. And don't regard yourself as a guardian of freedom unless you respect and preserve the rights of people you disagree with to free, public, unhampered Expression

I saw in America the image of democracy itself.

Every dictator uses religion as a prop to keep himself in power.