Aristotle Democracy Quotes

#1. The thing you've got to watch for is going broke when you're old. Look at all the people that go down and out at the finish. The man who built my country place is blind now and penniless. That's terrible!

Pearl White

#2. Of governments there are said to be only two forms - democracy and oligarchy. For aristocracy is considered to be a kind of oligarchy, as being the rule of a few, and the so-called constitutional government to be really a democracy.

Aristotle.

#3. The perversions are as follows: of royalty, tyranny; of aristocracy, oligarchy; of constitutional government, democracy.

Aristotle.

#4. A democracy exists whenever those who are free and are not well-off, being in the majority, are in sovereign control of government, an oligarchy when control lies with the rich and better-born, these being few.

Aristotle.

#5. For tyranny is a kind of monarchy which has in view the interest of the monarch only; oligarchy has in view the interest of the wealthy; democracy of the needy: none of them common good of all.

Aristotle.

#6. The real difference between democracy and oligarchy is poverty and wealth. Wherever men rule by reason of their wealth, whether they be few or many, that is an oligarchy, and where the poor rule, that is a democracy.

Aristotle.

#7. Where some people are very wealthy and others have nothing, the result will be either extreme democracy or absolute oligarchy, or despotism will come from either of those excesses.

Aristotle.

#8. Money originated with royalty and slavery, it has nothing to do with democracy or the struggle of the empoverished enslaved majority.

Aristotle.

#9. Because the rich are generally few in number, while the poor are many, they appear to be antagonistic, and as the one or the other prevails they form the government. Hence arises the common opinion that there are two kinds of government - democracy and oligarchy.

Aristotle.

#10. In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme.
Aristotle

Cornel West

#11. The true friend of the people should see that they be not too poor, for extreme poverty lowers the character of the democracy.

Aristotle.

#12. The right constitutions, three in number- kingship, aristocracy, and polity- and the deviations from these, likewise three in number - tyranny from kingship, oligarchy from aristocracy, democracy from polity.

Aristotle.

#13. He who is a citizen in a democracy will often not be a citizen in an oligarchy.

Aristotle.

#14. It's just a way of trying to get to a third thing that's not particular to any quote-unquote genre. It's been great for me; it's really opened me up and gotten me to use that part of my imagination. It's very scary in a lot of ways, and just as exciting.

Charlie Hunter

#15. The many are more incorruptible than the few; they are like the greater quantity of water which is less easily corrupted than a little.

Aristotle.

#16. Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.

Aristotle.

#17. Riding across Nebraska in a covered wagon was a monthlong immersion therapy in kindness, a reminder of the essential decency of my country.

Rinker Buck

#18. Democracy arose from men's thinking that if they are equal in any respect, they are equal absolutely.

Aristotle.

#19. The form of government is a democracy when the free, who are also poor and the majority, govern, and an oligarchy when the rich and the noble govern, they being at the same time few in number.

Aristotle.

#20. If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost.

Aristotle.

#21. Masculine republics give way to feminine democracies, and feminine democracies give way to tyranny.

Aristotle.

#22. No democracy can exist unless each of its citizens is as capable of outrage at injustice to another as he is of outrage at unjustice to himself.

Aristotle.

#23. It was a nasty paradox: he had developed an aesthetic that drew him to significant art, but that same sensibility made him realize he could never do anything remotely significant.

Will Chancellor

#24. Democracy is the form of government in which the free are rulers.

Aristotle.

#25. A democracy is a government in the hands of men of low birth, no property, and vulgar employments.

Aristotle.

#26. People who want to understand democracy should spend less time in the library with Aristotle and more time on the buses and in the subway.

Simeon Strunsky

#27. Who are your friends? Do they believe in you? Or do they stunt your growth with ridicule and disbelief? If the latter, you haven't friends. Go find some.

Ray Bradbury

#28. Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.

Aristotle.

#29. With a few exceptions, conservative Christian political activists are as ineffective as White Russian exiles, drinking tea from samovars in their Paris drawing rooms, plotting the restoration of the monarchy. One wishes them well but knows deep down that they are not the future.

Rod Dreher

#30. A democracy when put to the strain grows weak, and is supplanted by Oligarchy.

Aristotle.

#31. The curiosity of cats is, like their affection, of a purity and intensity rarely seen in humans. We would be jaded when faced with the fiftieth paper bag. Not so our cats.

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson