“The only distinction that democracies reward is a high degree of conformity.”
Source: Epigrams, p. 358
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Ambrose Bierce204
American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabu… 1842–1914Related quotes
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
1910s, The Progressives, Past and Present (1910)
“I think the reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself.”
Rita Mae Brown (1944) Novelist, poet, screenwriter, activist
Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman
Source: Jesus or Christianity: A Study in Contrasts (1929), p. 31
Context: Society always issues an ultimatum to the innovator; conform to this world or expect the reward of a heretic or a traitor. Every generation metes out substantially the same punishment to those who fall far below and those who rise high above its standards. Thieves and prophets of a new day rot in the same foul dungeon; murderers and the Savior of mankind agonize on adjacent crosses.
John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America
1963, Speech at Amherst College
Arun Jaitley (1952–2019) Indian politician
On the occasion of the Indian Parliament completing 60 years, as quoted in " Democracy is behind our growing global stature says PM http://www.abplive.in/india-news/democracy-is-behind-our-growing-global-stature-says-pm-153064", ABP Live (13 May 2012)
“Democracy is the high school of compromise.”
Eduard Bernstein (1850–1932) German politician
Source: "Evolutionary Socialism" (1899) https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bernstein/works/1899/evsoc/index.htm, Chapter III, The Tasks and Possibilities of Social Democracy
Henry Steele Commager (1902–1998) American historian
Source: Freedom, Loyalty, Dissent (1954), p. 153