Charlie Pierce Quotes

Majority rule rests on numbers; democracy rests on the well-grounded assumption that society is neither a collection of units nor an organism but a network of human relations.

The people made this government, and not the government the people. Destroy the intelligence of the people, and the government could not exist for a day; — destroy this government, and the people would create another, and yet another, of no less perfect symmetry.

When the citizens at large administer the state for the common interest, the government is called by the generic name - a constitution.

When a government for the people becomes a government in spite of the people, then who are we really serving?

The whole idea of a democracy is that we ourselves, the people, are supposed to make a path of our politics, and it is we who with our feet and our vote and our labors and our vigilance are supposed to shape our country.

The masses are our masters; and for every one who looks facts in the face his existence has become dependent on them, so that the thought of them must control his doings, his cares, and his duties.

As the happiness of the people is the sole end of government, so the consent of the people is the only foundation of it ...

The foundation upon which democracy rests is faith in the moral instincts of the people. Its ballot boxes, the franchise, its laws, and constitutions are but the outward manifestations of the deeper and more essential thing—a continuing trust in the moral purposes of the average man and woman.

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?

The government and people are inseparable under our system. We could not separate the government from the people if we would, and we would not if we could. This unity is the strength of our political structure.

No man is good enough to govern another man without the other's consent.

I'm just the democratic voice of Bolivia.

Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.

Our nation is built on the bedrock principle that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.

This is a country for, of, and by the people not for, of, and by the government. If we turn it over to them we cannot complain about what they're doing because this is a natural course of men and we have to hold their feet to the fire.

Our government is founded upon the intelligence of the people. I for one do not despair of the republic. I have great confidence in the virtue of the great majority of the people, and I cannot fear the result.

The way people in democracies think of the government as something different from themselves is a real handicap. And, of course, sometimes the government confirms their opinion.

Government, in the last analysis, is organized opinion. Where there is little or no public opinion, there is likely to be bad government.

Government itself is founded upon the great doctrine of the consent of the governed, and has its cornerstone in the memorable principle that men are endowed with inalienable rights.

No power on earth is greater than a mind and soul reawakened. Our Constitution begins 'we the people', not 'us the government'.

Let the people think they govern and they will be governed.

Voters will decide how they want to be governed.

Mankind, when left to themselves, are unfit for their own government.

This Bible is for the government of the people, by the people and for the people.

The primary social contract between the people of the United States and their government - quaint though it might seem to even mention it at this point - is that ours is to be a government 'of the people, by the people, for the people.'