Elections And Voting Quotes

Elections belong to the people. It's their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters. ~ Abraham Lincoln

The margin is narrow, but the responsibility is clear. ~ John F. Kennedy

Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Those who stay away from the election think that one vote will do no good. 'Tis but one step more to think one vote will do no harm. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry. ~ George Eliot

A share in the sovereignty of the state, which is exercised by the citizens at large, in voting at elections is one of the most important rights of the subject, and in a republic ought to stand foremost in the estimation of the law ... That portion of the sovereignty, to which each individual is entitled, can never be too highly prized. It is that for which we have fought and bled ... ~ Alexander Hamilton

Vote: the instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country. ~ Ambrose Bierce

Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves and the only way they could do this is by not voting. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

Your every voter, as surely as your chief magistrate, exercises a public trust. ~ Grover Cleveland

The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them. ~ Karl Marx

The whole concept of European culture as a cornucopia from which things are freely given is misleading. It does not take a specialist in anthropology to see that the European "give" is always highly selective. We never give any native people under our control – and we never shall, for it would be sheer folly as long as we stand on the basis of our present Realpolitik – the following elements of culture:

1. The instruments of physical power: fire-arms, bombing planes, poison gas, and all that makes an effective defence or aggression possible
2. We do not give out instruments of political mastery [i.e. sovereignty or voting rights]
3. We do not share with them the substance of economic wealth and advantages…. Even when under indirect economic exploitation… we allow the native a share of the profits, the full control of the economic organization remains in the hands of Western enterprise.
4. We do not admit them as equals to Church, Assembly, school, or drawing room… Full political, social and even religious equality is nowhere granted. ~ Bronisław Malinowski

And so it happened, that when others bent their knee, he refused and added loudly that his ancestors in their time bowed no knee to any stinking mayor. And in his ancestors' time the mayor was elected anyhow, and kicked out at will, and that the only people that inherited anything by right of birth were the congenital idiots. ~ Isaac Asimov

I'm a member of the Recording Academy and I see the way it works and even with the whole voting process it's broken down into specific categories. There are Pop categories and Dance and Rock and Metal and Film and Score and everything else. Basically when you are voting you are urged not to vote in the category that you don't know anything about. ~ John Petrucci

What ass first let loose the doctrine that the suffrage is a high boon and voting a noble privilege? ~ H.L. Mencken

Marriage equality is a very middle-class issue and voting rights is a very working-class issue. If you do not vote, who are you speaking for? Who will be the next Fannie Lou Hamer? If not you or someone you know, then who? ~ Darryl Pinckney

I will always tell the truth and do what I said I would do. ~ Ted Cruz

In democracy, our most important tool is to vote. But our power tool is when we have the power to influence others on who to vote for. ~ Ben Tolosa

When parties and elections are financed not by public funds but by private contributions, the political forum is so constrained by the wishes of the dominant interests that the basic measures needed to establish just constitutional rule are seldom properly presented. ~ John Rawls

New Rule: Gay marriage won't lead to dog marriage. It is not a slippery slope to rampant inter-species coupling. When women got the right to vote, it didn't lead to hamsters voting. No court has extended the equal protection clause to salmon. And for the record, all marriages are "same sex" marriages. You get married, and every night, it's the same sex. ~ Bill Maher

Democracy requires that if you who don't like the outcome of elections you have to tolerate it and then pursue your interest the next time around. ~ Randall Robinson

Perhaps most unsettling, Quigley reveals that real power operates behind the scenes, in secrecy, and with little to fear from so-called democratic elections. He proves that conspiracies, secret societies, and small, powerful networks of individuals are not only real; they're extremely effective at creating or destroying entire nations and shaping the world as a whole. We learn that "representative government" is, at best, a carefully managed con game. ~ Joseph Plummer

The religious right is one of the most politically militant voting blocs in the country and the agenda is clear (a gun in every uterus). Time we stopped subsidizing the anti-abortion movement in the form of tax-exemptions. ~ Quentin R. Bufogle

You know, a government should be a good thing. The Anglo-Saxons and the Germans rejoice in the phenomenon of government. They think that the recipe for human happiness is that you should make your desires and actions concordant with those of the government. So a German and an American will try to make the government work for him, protect him, and he will be more than happy to murder to preserve that wonderful symbiosis. And if he has some money to invest, he will invest it in the government, buying government bonds. He does this regardless of whether his government happens to be trillions of dollars in debt - that is, practically bankrupt. Despite his rhetoric of private enterprise, a Westerner will invest in his government. And we, Eastern and Central Europeans, and particularly Slavs, we all consider our governments to be absolutely the worst in the world. We are ashamed of our governments, and, as a rule, our government is ashamed of us, trying to improve us statistically, to say that we work more and drink less than we do. We think that there's no greater obstacle to human happiness than the government. So even if we have an institution pregnant with democratic potential, such as workers' self-management, we never even bother to attend a meeting unless absolutely forced. And as for voting, we circle any name without looking at whose it is, out of spite. To a Slav, there is nothing more disgusting than voting. We have an aversion to investing trust in any human being. So h ~ Josip Novakovich

The biggest danger for a politician is to shake hands with a man who is physically stronger, has been drinking, and is voting for the other guy. ~ William Proxmire

Well, one thing that has happened is they have had a presidential election in Egypt which has represented progress. Now, we were not happy with everything that happened with the parliamentary elections, and it was not exactly a perfect presidential election in Egypt. ~ Roger Wicker

Lee Kuan Yew ruled Singapore from 1959 until 1990, making him, we believe, the longest serving prime minister anywhere. His party, the People's Action Party (PAP), dominated elections and that dominance was reinforced by the allocation of public housing, upon which most people in Singapore rely. Neighborhoods that fail to deliver PAP votes come election time found the provision and maintenance of housing cut off.18 In Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe went one step further. In an operation called Murambatsvina (Operation Drive Out the Rubbish), he used bulldozers to demolish the houses and markets in neighborhoods that failed to support him in the 2005 election. ~ Bruce Bueno De Mesquita

All through the years of the Soviet empire, its Politburo held 'elections.' Of course, calling something an election and actually having it be an election are different things. ~ Benazir Bhutto

In ability choice education finance majorities people understanding voting A lot of voters always cast their ballot for the candidate who seems to them to be one of the people. That means he must have the same superstitions, the same unbalanced prejudices, and the same lack of understanding of public finances that are characteristic of the majority. A better choice would be a candidate who has a closer understanding and a better education than the majority. Too much voting is based on affability rather than on ability. ~ William Feather

People who run for office and are defeated aren't rejected in the usual sense of the word. They're just defeated because they couldn't get enough votes that one time. It doesn't mean the public despises them. It's a preference for somebody else for that particular office at that particular moment, that's all. The examples I've given have shown that when those men were passed up, they were still highly thought of and were still great men. There were a good many like that. You take the Adams family. After John Quincy Adams passed on, there were Adams descendants in Lincoln's cabinet. They wrote important histories and things of that kind. Even in the states, some good men are governors who have been defeated previously in elections, even in previous tries for governor. If they don't become pessimists and decide to lay down and take it, if they get up and start over again, why, they don't have any trouble. ~ Harry Truman

The odd American idea that giving money to political campaigns is free speech means that the very rich have far more free speech, and so in effect far more voting power, than other citizens. ~ Timothy Snyder

People who don't exercise their freedom of voting (choosing their leaders) are irresponsible. Such people have no right to complain or want more than what they are receiving from the government. Intentional failure to vote is cowardly, irresponsible and a sign of ignorance. ~ Allan Amanyire

Some people seem to believe that for each problem there is a solution readily available - a solution that can be promptly achieved by passing a law and voting some money. I think of this as the vending machine concept of social change. Put a coin in the machine and out comes a piece of candy. If there is a social problem, pass a law and out comes a solution. ~ John W. Gardner

Once you hit 40, being in a band - a committee voting constantly on what you're going to be doing next month - it's more of a challenge. And when you have a kid as well. ~ Dean Wareham

Democrats in Louisville were led by Courier-Journal editor Henry Watterson and were implacably opposed to blacks voting. ~ Rand Paul

We have to know about the world around us: whom and what we're voting for and how best to address the vital social, political, and economic issues facing our communities, our nation, and our planet. No one person can do it all, yet no one person is exempt from participating. We need and depend upon each other. ~ Lama Surya Das

Elections aren't about records, they're about plans and choices. ~ David Cameron

Fear sticks like a barb in the mind. Someone cold enough to take advantage of it can attach strings to those barbs and make puppets of men and women. ~ Lance Conrad

You talk about the values that you have whether they're in favor or not in favor. That's how you lead. The reality is, we're losing more and more elections. ~ Artur Davis

Walking back from the convention site I chatted with a normal Bostonian for several blocks
who must have identified me through our covert system of signals. He was mostly bemused by the Democrats' primetime speakers and told me he used to be an independent, but for the last 20 years found himself voting mostly Republican. Then he corrected himself and said he votes for the American. ~ Ann Coulter

Tony Blair was a good politician but not a good Prime Minister, and that's what we don't want to be. We don't want to be just people who are good at winning elections: we want to be good at governing. I think we benefit from having seen the mistakes that we think Tony Blair made in 1997. ~ George Osborne