The presidential candidates have spoken and today it is the American voters who will be quoted. It is during the quietness of voting and as the race begins to unfold -- that we often reflect upon what has been said of past elections, candidates and the democratic process. Have a look at what's been said:
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter -- Winston Churchill
Thinking isn't agreeing or disagreeing. That's voting -- Robert Frost
Thinking isn't agreeing or disagreeing. That's voting -- Robert Frost
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
Elections determine who is in power, but they do not determine how power is used -- Paul Collier
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
I'm tired of hearing it said that democracy doesn't work. Of course it doesn't work. We are supposed to work it -- Alexander Woollcott
I hope that no American will waste his franchise and throw away his vote by voting either for me or against me solely on account of my religious affiliation. It is not relevant --
John F. Kennedy
The politicians were talking themselves red, white and blue in the face ~ Clare Boothe Luce
Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be -- Sydney J. Harris
A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but won't cross the street to vote in a national election -- Bill Vaughan
It's not the voting that's democracy; it's the counting --Tom Stoppard, Jumpers
Hell, I never vote for anybody, I always vote against -- W.C. Fields
Do you ever get the feeling that the only reason we have elections is to find out if the polls were right? -- Robert Orben
A politician
should have three hats. One for throwing
into the ring, one for talking through, and one for pulling rabbits out of if
elected -- Carl Sandburg
Our political institutions work remarkably well. They are designed to clang against each other. The noise is democracy at work -~ Michael Novak
I like the smell of a dunged field, and the tumult of a popular election -- Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare
I just received the following wire from my generous Daddy: "Dear Jack, Don't
buy a single vote more than necessary. I'll be damned if I'm going to
pay for a landslide -- John F. Kennedy
An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry -- George Eliot.
General
Motors, General Mills, General Foods, general ignorance, general apathy, and
general cussedness elect presidents and Congressmen and maintain them in
power -- Herbert M. Shelton.
People often say that, in a democracy, decisions are made by a majority of the people. Of course, that is not true. Decisions are made by a majority of those who make themselves heard and who vote - a very different thing -- Walter H. Judd
The most important political office is that of the private citizen -- Louis Brandeis
Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor -- James Russell Lowell
I know nothing grander, better exercise, better digestion, more positive proof of the past, the triumphant result of faith in human kind, than a well-contested American national election - Walt Whitman.
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