Alexander Fraser Tytler famous quotes

Last updated: Sep 5, 2024

Democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largesse out of the public treasure. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefit from the public treasury, with the result that democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy, always to be followed by a dictatorship, and then a monarchy.
-- Alexander Fraser Tytler

#Government #Democracy #Majority
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until a majority of voters discover that they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury.
-- Alexander Fraser Tytler

#Freedom #Government #Democracy
The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage.
-- Alexander Fraser Tytler

#Spiritual #Average #Years
It is not, perhaps, unreasonable to conclude, that a pure and perfect democracy is a thing not attainable by man, constituted as he is of contending elements of vice and virtue, and ever mainly influenced by the predominant principle of self-interest. It may, indeed, be confidently asserted, that there never was that government called a republic, which was not ultimately ruled by a single will, and, therefore, (however bold may seem the paradox,) virtually and substantially a monarchy.
-- Alexander Fraser Tytler

#Men #Self #Perfect
No republic has long outlived the discovery by a majority of its people that they could vote themselves largesse from the public treasury.
-- Alexander Fraser Tytler

#Discovery #Long #People

Well, fancy giving money to the Government! Might as well have put it down the drain.
Government should be a place where people can come together, and no one gets left behind. No oneâ€¦gets left behind. An instrument of good.
It was, however, resolved that 'we use our private influence at present to prevent our brethren from going into court and promising to obey the law; and as soon as possible we take steps to get some flavors from the government for those who already have more wives than one.'
Democracy can be sustained and developed only by people who understand its essence.
The goal of a great democracy should be fulfillment, not ease. It should be adequacy, not serenity.
As citizens of this democracy, you are the rulers and the ruled, the law-givers and the law-abiding, the beginning and the end.
The majority can never replace the man
We want all the Palestinians back in their homeland, and then there can be a fair referendum for people to choose the form of state they want. Whoever gets the majority can rule.
I'm part of the mushball middle. I consider 'confused' the majority position because, thankfully, most people would rather be uncertain some of the time than 100% positive all the time - even when they're wrong.
A decline in the national housing price level would need to be substantial to trigger a significant rise in foreclosures, because the vast majority of homeowners have built up substantial equity in their homes despite large mortgage-market financed withdrawals of home equity in recent years.

Alexander Fraser Tytler famous quotes

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