Quotes Library

November 30, 2025

Democracy encourages the majority to decide things about which the majority is blissfully ignorant.

John Simon (1925–2019), American author and critic, The Portable Curmudgeon, Jon Winokur, ed. (New York: 1987), p.84

Is this the essential weakness of democracy? Do you now understand your purpose in life (political life, that is)?

The truth is that the vast majority of the majority of people don’t give a fig about the things you decide, unless and until it impacts them in some negative way, at which point you will be entirely to blame, even if you voted “No” on the matter.


More Quotes

October 20, 2025
Universal suffrage [i.e., votes for all adult men and women] is the government of a house by its nursery.
November 16, 2025
There is no more ungraceful figure than that of a humanitarian with the eye to main chance.
February 15, 2025
All the business of war, and indeed all the business of life, is to endeavor to find out what you don’t know by what you do;
Page 96 of 122