George Washington Quotes

Decision making in a democracy depends above all on knowledge and not just the intel available to presidents and policymakers.

The people are way ahead of the Congress. They are way ahead of the administration.

It is one of the evils of democratical governments, that the people, not always seeing and frequently misled, must often feel before they can act.

Educated people can make their own choices about their governments. And certainly for women, an education allows you to understand your rights.

A government or a party gets the people it deserves and sooner or later a people gets the government it deserves.

What I love to do is the policy. The politics, I'm brand-new at.

I've always said I would never say never when it comes to politics.

All government is an evil, but, of the two form's of that evil, democracy or monarchy, the sounder is monarchy; the more able to do its will, democracy.

We the people tell the government what to do, it doesn't tell us.

The remedy for our social evils does not consist so much in changing the system of government as it does in increasing the general intelligence of the people so that they may learn how to govern.

The American people are too well schooled in the duty and practice of submitting to the will of the majority to permit any serious uneasiness on that account

But our perfect democracy, which neither needs nor particularly wants voters, is a rarity. It is important to remember there still exist many other forms of government in the world today, and that dozens of foreign governments still long for a democracy such as ours to be imposed on them.

The purse of the people is the real seat of sensibility. Let it be drawn upon largely, and they will then listen to truths which could not excite them through any other organ.

If in a democratic country nothing can be permanently achieved save through the masses of the people, it will be impossible to establish a higher political life than the people themselves crave.

I can concede that the government has no knowledge of the people, but I believe the people know less of the government. There are useless officials, evil, if you like, but there are also good ones, and these are not able to accomplish anything because they encounter an inert mass, the population that takes little part in matters that concern them.

In a political sense, there is one problem that currently underlies all of the others. That problem is making Government sufficiently responsive to the people. If we don't make government responsive to the people, we don't make it believable. And we must make government believable if we are to have a functioning democracy.

I always had a respect and an admiration for people who got into politics. I certainly have always been interested in law and political science.

Weighing benefits against costs is the way most people make decisions - and the way most businesses make decisions, if they want to stay in business. Only in government is any benefit, however small, considered to be worth any cost, however large.

There's something about me that makes a lot of people want to throw up.

The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government.

We cannot decide for the American people.

A silent majority and government by the people is incompatible.

Unlike any other nation, here the people rule, and their will is the supreme law. It is sometimes sneeringly said by those who do not like free government, that here we count heads. True, heads are counted, but brains also . . .

What the public does is not to express its opinions but to align itself for or against a proposal. If that theory is accepted, we must abandon the notion that democratic government can be the direct expression of the will of the people. We must abandon the notion that the people govern. Instead, we must adopt the theory that, by their occasional mobilizations as a majority, people support or oppose the individuals who actually govern. We must say that the popular will does not direct continuously but that it intervenes occasionally.

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.