A Quote by Simon Bolivar
Republican democracy is overperfect and demands political virtues and talents far superior to our own.
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Among the popular and representative systems of government I do not approve of the federal system: it is too perfect; and it requires virtues and political talents much superior to our own.
For all the manufactured 'Republican versus Democrat' drama that dominates today's cable news and political rhetoric, the most striking feature of our present-day democracy is not partisan divide - it's a corrupt system that protects incumbents from the consequences that real democracy brings.
At a time when 2500 American soldiers have given their lives for the cause of bringing democracy to Iraq, it is sad and frustrating to watch the Republican establishment disgrace the exercise of democracy in our own House of Representatives.
It is in the nature of all party systems that the authentically political talents can assert themselves only in rare cases, and it is even rarer that the specifically political qualifications survive the petty maneuvers of party politics with its demands for plain salesmanship.
Democracy demands sacrifice. Democracy demands that the rules of the game be respected just as the constitution requires.
Politics, under a democracy, reduces itself to a mere struggle for office by flatterers of the proletariat; even when a superior man prevails at that disgusting game he must prevail at the cost of his self-respect. Not many superior men make the attempt. The average great captain of the rabble, when he is not simply a weeper over irremediable wrongs, is a hypocrite so far gone that he is unconscious of his own hypocrisy.. a slimy fellow, offensive to the nose.
We also call upon the king to hand over power to the political parties and for the political parties to shoulder their responsibility and turn the people's demands for democracy and good governance into reality.
During the 1960s, large groups of people who are normally passive and apathetic began to try to enter the political arena to press their demands.... The naive might call that democracy, but that's because they don't understand. The sophisticated understand that that's the crisis of democracy.
The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together: our virtues would be proud if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair if they were not cherished by our own virtues.
Divine Justice demands that the rights of both sexes should be equally respected since neither is superior to the other in the eyes of Heaven. Dignity before God depends, not on sex, but on purity and luminosity of heart. Human virtues belong equally to all!
The demands of the science, of the ethics and of the reason are superior to the demands of the people!
Intelligence is present everywhere in our bodies . . . our own inner intelligence is far superior to any we can try to substitute from the outside.
It is certain that stealing nourishes courage, strength, skill, tact, in a word, all the virtues useful to a republican system and consequently to our own. Lay partiality aside, and answer me: is theft, whose effect is to distribute wealth more evenly, to be branded as a wrong in our day, under our government which aims at equality? Plainly, the answer is no.
Tact is one of the first of mental virtues, the absence of which is frequently fatal to the best of talents. Without denying that it is a talent of itself, it will suffice if we admit that it supplies the place of many talents.
I think we have some special talents. That being said, I think it's dangerous to rely on special talents - it's better to own lots of monopolistic businesses with unregulated prices. But that's not the world today. We have made money exercising our talents and will continue to do so.
Change from below, the formulation of demands from the populace to end unacceptable injustice, supported by direct action, has played a far larger part in shaping British democracy than most constitutional lawyers, political commentators, historians or statesmen have ever cared to admit. Direct action in a democratic society is fundamentally an educational exercise.
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