“To advise according to the laws what was best for the people”
- The Bouletic oath, Cleisthenes (credited with creation of Athenian democracy)
“I am an adherent of the ideal of democracy, although I well know the weaknesses of the democratic form of government.
Social equality and economic protection of the individual appeared to me always as the important communal aims of the state.
Although I am a typical loner in daily life, my consciousness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice has preserved me from feeling isolated.”
-Albert Einstein, in “My Credo”
“Our safety, our liberty, depends upon preserving the Constitution of the United States as our fathers made it inviolate.
The people of the United States are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.”
-Abraham Lincoln
“Two Cheers for Democracy: one because it admits variety and
two because it permits criticism.
Two cheers are quite enough:
there is no occasion to give three.”
-E. M. Forster, “What I Believe”, 1938
“Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.”
- George Bernard Shaw
