“People who do not know what government is are not likely to know what democracy is either, for democracy is only what the soft inside of the oyster looks like.”

—  Elmer Eric Schattschneider

Source: Two Hundred Million Americans in Search of a Government (1969), p. 35

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Elmer Eric Schattschneider photo
Elmer Eric Schattschneider8
American political scientist 1892–1971

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“What is government? From the outside it looks like a security system based on the marriage of land and people, From the inside, it looks like and attempts to create a community. A government is like an oyster, hard on the outside and soft on the inside, and the outside and inside are utterly dependent on each other.”

Elmer Eric Schattschneider (1892–1971) American political scientist

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“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”

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