H. L. Mencken Quotes

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

What does that mean for a society, for a democracy, when the people that you elect on the basis of promises can basically suborn the will of the electorate?

We're going to make sure that the people who run for office and get elected are the ones who are going to work for the American people.

A republican form of government, without intelligence in the people, must be, on a vast scale, what a mad-house, without superintendent or keepers, would be on a small one.

Elected representatives are so embedded in the basic notion of what constitutes a democratic nation that it has become indistinguishable from any other form of democratic governance.

I have never tried to fiddle my role as leader of the city of Sheffield, as an MP or as a minister.

We shouldn't accept mediocrity as the best a politician can do.

The Fayyad cabinet may well be the best the Palestinians ever get. But whatever its good qualities, there is no democracy.

A government is not in power. It is in office, put there by the will of the people.

If you ever doubt that the people are the boss in a democracy, run for office. Even the President is a hired hand.

It is a duty of those entrusted with the administration of their affairs to conform themselves to the decided choice of their constituents.

it does not make any difference whether it were the Republican or Democratic Party. It is the business of the party in power to face the American Nation, stand responsible for the conduct of its administration, and to give the people of this Nation a prosecution in this case that will restore the confidence of the people not in the party in power merely, or any party, but in their Government, in the integrity of their public officials.

Members of Congress are trustees of the people.

In democracies, we aren't always governed by the people or the parties that we voted for. But when officials are elected, we must respect their authority, as long as they're exercising that authority within the bounds of whatever regulatory frameworks are in place to guide them.

I actually don't believe in governance by referendum. I believe that we have a democracy, that we elect people to make decisions.

I just want to faithfully represent the public that voted for me and diligently work for all the people in Israel. If I can do that, I don't care what anyone says about me.

Those who govern must see how the people react to administration. Ultimately, the people are the final arbiters.

Public confidence in the integrity of the Government is indispensable to faith in democracy; and when we lose faith in the system, we have lost faith in everything we fight and spend for.

Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy known as One Man, One Vote. The Patrician was the Man; he had the Vote.

If you will help run our government in the American way, then there will never be any danger of our government running America in the wrong way.

Democracy is necessitated by the fact that all men are sinners; it is made possible by the fact that we know it.

The two great points of difference between a democracy and a republic are: first, the delegation of the government, in the latter,to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens and greater sphere of country over which the latter may be extended.

Since James Madison day (and long before), there have been constant struggles over "democratic governance".

Politics deserves much praise. Politics is a preoccupation of free men, and its existence is a test of freedom. The praise of free men is worth having, for it is the only praise which is free from either servility or condescension.

We exist, and are quoted, as standing proofs that a government, so modeled as to rest continually on the will of the whole society, is a practicable government.