Abraham Flexner Quotes

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.

The maxim, that governments ought to train the people in the way in which they should go, sounds well. But is there any reason for believing that a government is more likely to lead the people in the right way than the people to fall into the right way of themselves?

Choose the manager of your government as you would the manager of your private business.

In a democracy, if you don't get the votes, nothing else is possible, no matter how wonderful your dreams.

Knowledge of human nature is the beginning and end of political education.

Let's say there are 500 sons and daughters like you in each state. Then we could control the government.

Balancing the common good with the freedom and liberty to exercise that individuality has been and remains a challenge for those committed to democracy while understanding that the polis ensures our participation and therefore our citizenship.

Progressivism is the belief that we have too much freedom with which to make too many stupid choices.

The people will save their government, if the government itself will allow them.

I hope there have been times when I made you all proud, or made you all smile or at least piqued your interest in this wonderful institution we call government.

Anything important is never left to the vote of the people. We only get to vote on some man; we never get to vote on what he is to do.

No citizen is apolitical; as a citizen, by definition, has to take interest in public affairs.

Democracy actually requires that the whole public be able to see common problems and address them and step outside of their own sort of narrow self-interest to do so.

I don't think that voters should be fixated on public policy. In a healthy republic, they wouldn't have to worry every waking hour about what their government is doing.

A good government may, indeed, redress the grievances of an injured people; but a strong people can alone build up a great nation.

The unique thing about our country is that we don't get behind politicians, politicians get behind us.

Every cook or every laborer cannot govern the state.

Americans want individual freedom and yet they want strong communities. There is some contradiction there.

Public business … must always be done by somebody…. If wise men decline it, others will not; if honest men refuse it, others will not.

Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. Men have a right that these wants should be provided for by this wisdom.

The government is just the people acting together.

American democracy must be a failure because it places the supreme authority in the hands of the most ignorant part of society.

Majorities without discipline are not majorities.

To secure a full effect to your object, it will be necessary that you should meet and consult together for the common good in your towns and counties. It is in dark and trying times that this constitutional privilege.

It is not much to be wondered at if impatient or disappointed reformers, groaning under the impediments opposed to the most salutary public improvements by the ignorance, the indifference, the intractableness, the perverse obstinacy of a people, and the corrupt combinations of selfish private interests armed with the powerful weapons afforded by free institutions, should at times sigh for a strong hand to bear down all these obstacles, and compel a recalcitrant people to be better governed.