George Monbiot Quotes

Anybody who asks for democracy to be introduced should respect the results of democracy.

Democracy is being allowed to vote for the candidate you dislike least.

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.

If you want a good argument against democracy, spend five minutes with a voter.

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

If an election is simply a one-day snapshot of transient mass delusions, then this is not a very noble form of government.

It's not the voting that's democracy, it's the counting.

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.

Democracy is about voting and it's about a majority vote. And it's time that we started exercising the Democratic process.

Democracy means the opportunity to be everyone's slave.

The problem is there is no such thing as a viable democracy made up of experts, zealots, politicians and spectators.

Voting should be the right of the great body of the society…an inconsiderable proportion, or a favored class of it; otherwise a handful of tyrannical nobles, exercising their oppressions by a delegation of their powers, might aspire to the rank of republicans, and claim for their government the honorable title of republic.

That a majority of people can vote against a government, and yet that government still remains in power does not raise confidence in our democracy.

The essential objection to democracy is that, with few exceptions, it imposes degrading acts and attitudes upon the men responsible for the welfare and dignity of the state.

The great advantage of representatives is their capacity of discussing public affairs. For this, the people collectively are extremely unfit, which is one of the chief inconveniences of a democracy.

The parliamentary regime leaves everything to the decision of majorities,--how can the large majorities beyond parliament be expected not to wish to decide? If, from above, they hear the fiddle screeching, what else is to be expected than that those below should dance?

Sure the people are stupid: the human race is stupid. Sure Congress is an inefficient instrument of government. But the people are not stupid enough to abandon representative government for any other kind, including government by the guy who knows.

Roosevelt understood that democracy requires persuasion and consent

Predicting voter turnout is not hard, it’s impossible.

Democracy, in brief, requires government by parties because the citizens are too numerous, too ill-informed and too preoccupied to come together spontaneously to choose the policies and leaders they wish to prevail. Political machinery has to be worked. The parties work it.

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

If we would learn what the human race really is at bottom, we need only observe it in election times.

I have a negative approach to democracy. I think it should be primarily a mechanism by which people can remove a bad leader.

Elections aren't just about who votes but who doesn't vote.

During my time as a political strategist, one of the most vexing problems was figuring out why so many people vote against their perceived interests.