Source: Freedom, Loyalty, Dissent (1954), p. 15
“Citizens of a Jeffersonian democracy can be as religious or irreligious as they please as long as they are not “fanatical.” That is, they must abandon or modify opinion on matters of ultimate importance, the opinions that may hitherto have given sense and point to their lives, if these opinions entail public actions that cannot be justified to most of their fellow citizens.”
"The priority of democracy to philosophy"
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Richard Rorty 21
American philosopher 1931–2007Related quotes

As quoted by William A. DeGregorio, The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents (1984) p. 133

Reynolds v. United States, 980 U.S. 145 (1879), upholding convictions of Mormons practicing polygamy

In response to the House Un-American Activities Committee's ban on radio recording and television cameras from public hearings (1 February 1949), quoted in The New York Times http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9500E1DC173FE03ABC4E53DFB4668382659EDE&legacy=true

"Fooling the People as a Fine Art", La Follette's Magazine (April 1918)

2012, Yangon University Speech (November 2012)

“Under democracy individual liberty of opinion and action is jealously guarded.”
Young India (2 March 1922)
1920s

“The law is in a sense the consolidated public opinion of society.”
Defence of Criminals: A Criticism of Morality (1889)

Pg 27.
Conquest of Abundance (2001 [posthumous])
Context: Many "educated citizens" take it for granted that reality is what scientists say it is and that other opinions may be recorded, but need not be taken seriously. But science offers not one story, it offers many; the stories clash and their relation to a story-independent "reality" is as problematic as the relation of the Homeric epics to an alleged "Homeric world."

Louis Brownlow: "The Art and Science of Public Administration." in: Puerto Rico and Its Public Administration Program. Proceedings of the Public Administration Conference, October-November 1945, p. 191.