Quotes about vote

A collection of quotes on the topic of vote, voting, people, right.

Quotes about vote

Thomas Sowell photo
Joseph Stalin photo

“People who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.”

Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Variant: Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything.

Kurt Cobain photo

“I wouldn't have been surprised if they had voted me Most Likely To Kill Everyone At A High School Dance.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

As quoted in Howl (1993-07-22).
Interviews (1989-1994), Print

Ian Smith photo
Michael Parenti photo

“There is a century-old saying, "The dollar votes more times than the man."”

Michael Parenti (1933) American academic

Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 13, p. 222

Rajneesh photo

“It is not decided by votes what is true; otherwise we could never come to any truth, ever.”

Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement

Your Answers Questioned (2003)
Context: It is not decided by votes what is true; otherwise we could never come to any truth, ever. People will vote for what is comfortable — and lies are very comfortable because you don't have to do anything about them, you just have to believe. Truth needs great effort, discovery, risk, and it needs you to walk alone on a path that nobody has traveled before.

“There are three things you do only once in your life: born, die and voting on PT!”

Luiz Carlos Alborghetti (1945–2009) Italian-Brazilian radio commenter, showman and political figure

Original: (pt) Existem três coisas que você só faz uma vez na vida: nascer, morrer e votar no PT!

Jürgen Habermas photo
Joseph Stalin photo

“I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this—who will count the votes, and how.”

Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

In Russian: Я считаю, что совершенно неважно, кто и как будет в партии голосовать; но вот что чрезвычайно важно, это - кто и как будет считать голоса.
Said in 1923, as quoted in The Memoirs of Stalin's Former Secretary http://www.panrus.com/books/details.php?langID=1&bookID=5905 (1992) by Boris Bazhanov [Saint Petersburg] (Борис Бажанов. Воспоминания бывшего секретаря Сталина). (Text online in Russian) http://lib.ru/MEMUARY/BAZHANOW/stalin.txt.
Variant (loose) translation: The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.
Contemporary witnesses

Nathan Bedford Forrest photo
Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein photo

“Anyone who votes Labour ought to be locked up.”

Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein (1887–1976) British Army officer, Commander of Allied forces at the Battle of El Alamein

Speech at Woodford, October 1959[citation needed]

Al Capone photo
Ben Shapiro photo

“The Jewish people has always been plagued by Bad Jews, who undermine it from within. In America, those Bad Jews largely vote Democrat.”

Ben Shapiro (1984) American journalist and attorney

Twitter https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/133918830073352192, , quoted in * 2019-08-22

What Republicans Really Mean When They Call Jews Disloyal

Jordan Weissman

Slate

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/08/what-republicans-really-mean-when-they-call-jews-disloyal.html
2011

Barack Obama photo
Aldo Leopold photo
Terry Pratchett photo
Alexis De Tocqueville photo
Theodore Roosevelt photo

“A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Chapter V Applied Idealism http://www.bartleby.com/55/5.html
1910s, Theodore Roosevelt — An Autobiography (1913)

Mark Twain photo

“If voting made any difference they wouldn't let us do it.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Variant: If voting made any difference they wouldn't let us do it.

Woodrow Wilson photo

“The white men of the South were aroused by the mere instinct of self-preservation to rid themselves, by fair means or foul, of the intolerable burden of governments sustained by the votes of ignorant negroes and conducted in the interest of adventurers.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

Variant: The white men of the South were aroused by the mere instinct of self-preservation to rid themselves, by fair means or foul, of the intolerable burden of governments sustained by the votes of ignorant negroes and conducted in the interest of adventurers.
Source: 1900s, A History of the American People, Vol. 9 (1902), p. 58

Robert E. Lee photo
Billy Connolly photo
Abraham Lincoln photo
Horace Mann photo

“We go by the major vote, and if the majority are insane, the sane must go to the hospital. As Satan said, "Evil, be thou my good," so they say, "Darkness, be thou my light."”

Horace Mann (1796–1859) American politician

Source: Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann (1872), p. 184

Barack Obama photo

“But what’s also true is that each of us have to cultivate an attitude of tolerance and mutual respect. And for young people, we have to try to encourage each other to be tolerant and respectful. So in the United States, obviously one of the biggest problems historically has been the issue of racial discrimination. And part of our efforts to overcome racial discrimination involve passing laws like the Civil Rights Law and the Voting Rights Law, and that required marches and protests and Dr. King. But part of the effort was also people changing the hearts and minds, and realizing that just because somebody doesn’t look like me doesn’t mean that they’re not worthy of respect. And when you’re growing up and you saw a friend of yours call somebody by a derogatory name, a rude name because they were different, it’s your job to say to that person, actually, that’s not the right way to think. If you are Christian and you have a friend who says I hate Muslims, then it’s up to you to say to that friend, you know what, I don’t believe in that; I think that’s the wrong attitude, I think we have to be respectful of the Muslim population. If you’re Buddhist and you say -- you hear somebody in your group say I want to treat a Hindu differently, it’s your job to speak out. So the most important thing I think is for you to, in whatever circle of influence you have, speak out on behalf of tolerance and diversity and respect. If you are quiet, then the people who are intolerant, they’ll own the stage and they’ll set the terms of the debate. And one of the things that leadership requires is saying things even when it’s uncomfortable, even when it’s unpopular -- especially when it’s unpopular. So I hope that as you get more influence, you’ll continue to speak out on behalf of these values.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Town Hall Speech (November 2014)

Otto von Bismarck photo

“Not by speeches and votes of the majority are the great questions of the time decided — that was the error of 1848 and 1849 — but by iron and blood.”

Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898) German statesman, Chancellor of Germany

Nicht durch Reden und Majoritätsbeschlüsse werden die großen Fragen der Zeit entschieden — daß ist der große Fehler von 1848 und 1849 gewesen — sondern durch Eisen und Blut.
Variant translations :
: It is not by speeches and majority vote that the great questions of our time will be decided — as that was error of 1848 and 1849 — but rather by iron and blood.
The great questions of the time are not decided by speeches and majority decisions — that was the error of 1848 and 1849 — but by iron and blood.
The great issues of the day are not decided through speeches and majority resolutions — that was the great error of 1848 and 1849 — but through blood and iron.
The great questions of the day will not be decided by speeches and the resolutions of majorities — that was the great mistake from 1848 to 1849 — but by blood and iron.
The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions … but by iron and blood.
Speech to the Budget Commission of the Prussian Diet (30 September 1862), published in Fürst Bismarck als Redner, Vol. 2 (after 1881), edited by Wilhelm Böhm, p. 12 http://books.google.de/books?id=3WsIAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA12); after some objections to his initial speech Bismarck returned to the podium and declared:
::Auswärtige Conflicte zu suchen, um über innere Schwierigkeiten hinwegzukommen, dagegen müsse er sich verwahren; das würde frivol sein; er wolle nicht Händel suchen ; er spreche von Conflicten, denen wir nicht entgehen würden, ohne daß wir sie suchten.
:: I must protest that I would never seek foreign conflicts just to go over domestic difficulties; that would be frivolous. I was speaking of conflicts that we could not avoid, even though we do not seek them.
::* Die Reden des Ministerpräsidenten von Bismarck-Schönhausen im Preußischen Landtage 1862-1865 (1903) edited by Horst Kohl, p. 31
1860s

Ronald Reagan photo

“No Republican, no matter how liberal, is going to woo a Democratic vote; but a Republican bucking the giveaway trend might re-create some voters who have been staying home.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

1960 Letter from Reagan to Richard Nixon, As quoted in The New York Times (27 October 1984) http://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/27/us/on-the-record-text-of-1960-reagan-letter.html
1960s

Harvey Milk photo
Huey Long photo

“Whenever this administration has gone to the left I have voted for it, and whenever it has gone to the right I have voted against it.”

Huey Long (1893–1935) American politician, Governor of Louisiana, and United States Senator

Huey Long on the new deal. (Williams p. 708)

Ayaan Hirsi Ali photo
Ronald Reagan photo

“Back in 1927, an American socialist, Norman Thomas, six times candidate for President on the Socialist Party ticket, said that the American people would never vote for socialism but he said under the name of liberalism the American people would adopt every fragment of the socialist program.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan_Speaks_Out_Against_Socialized_Medicine (1961 LP)
1960s

Ben Shapiro photo
Barack Obama photo
Krist Novoselic photo

“I voted last week, and everything I voted for was defeated. I voted for less police station money and against adding more courtrooms. The guy I voted for, a congressman, lost big time because he's totally anti-military. He wanted to cut the CIA budget! He's really cool. But he lost.”

Krist Novoselic (1965) Croatian-American rock musician

As quoted in "Take The Money and Run", Sounds (27 December 1990), interviewed by Keith Cameron on 23 September 1990<sup> http://www.livenirvana.com/interviews/9009kc/index.html</sup>

Abraham Lincoln photo
Isaac Newton photo

“Upon Christmas-day, the people of Rome, who had hitherto elected their Bishop, and reckoned that they and their Senate inherited the rights of the ancient Senate and people of Rome, voted Charles their Emperor, and subjected themselves to him in such manner as the old Roman Empire and their Senate were subjected to the old Roman Emperors. The Pope [Leo III] crowned him, and anointed him with holy oil, and worshiped him on his knees after the manner of adoring the old Roman Emperors… The Emperor, on the other hand, took the following oath to the Pope: In nomine Christi spondeo atque polliceor, Ego Carolus Imperator coram Deo & beato Petro Apostolo, me protectorem ac defensorem fore hujus sanctæ Romanæ Ecclesiæ in omnibus utilitatibus, quatenùs divino fultus fuero adjutorio, prout sciero poteroque. The Emperor was also made Consul of Rome, and his son Pipin crowned King of Italy: and henceforward the Emperor styled himself: Carolus serenissimus, Augustus, à Deo coronatus, magnus, pacificus, Romæ gubernans imperium [Charles, most serene Augustus crowned by God, the great, peaceful emperor ruling the Roman empire], or Imperator Romanorum [Emperor of the Romans]; and was prayed for in the Churches of Rome. His image was henceforward put upon the coins of Rome: while the enemies of the Pope, to the number of three hundred Romans and two or three of the Clergy, were sentenced to death. The three hundred Romans were beheaded in one day in the Lateran fields: but the Clergymen at the intercession of the Pope were pardoned, and banished into France. And thus the title of Roman Emperor, which had hitherto been in the Greek Emperors, was by this act transferred in the West to the Kings of France.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

Vol. I, Ch. 7: Of the Eleventh Horn of Daniel's Fourth Beast
Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733)

Abraham Lincoln photo

“I do oppose the extension of slavery, because my judgment and feelings so prompt me; and I am under no obligation to the contrary. If for this you and I must differ, differ we must. You say if you were President, you would send an army and hang the leaders of the Missouri outrages upon the Kansas elections; still, if Kansas fairly votes herself a slave state, she must be admitted, or the Union must be dissolved. But how if she votes herself a slave State unfairly — that is, by the very means for which you say you would hang men? Must she still be admitted, or the Union be dissolved? That will be the phase of the question when it first becomes a practical one. In your assumption that there may be a fair decision of the slavery question in Kansas, I plainly see you and I would differ about the Nebraska-law. I look upon that enactment not as a law, but as violence from the beginning. It was conceived in violence, passed in violence, is maintained in violence, and is being executed in violence. I say it was conceived in violence, because the destruction of the Missouri Compromise, under the circumstances, was nothing less than violence. It was passed in violence, because it could not have passed at all but for the votes of many members in violence of the known will of their constituents. It is maintained in violence because the elections since, clearly demand it's repeal, and this demand is openly disregarded. You say men ought to be hung for the way they are executing that law; and I say the way it is being executed is quite as good as any of its antecedents. It is being executed in the precise way which was intended from the first; else why does no Nebraska man express astonishment or condemnation? Poor Reeder is the only public man who has been silly enough to believe that any thing like fairness was ever intended; and he has been bravely undeceived.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1850s, Letter to Joshua F. Speed (1855)

Abraham Lincoln photo

“Some twelve thousand voters in the heretofore slave-state of Louisiana have sworn allegiance to the Union, assumed to be the rightful political power of the State, held elections, organized a State government, adopted a free-state constitution, giving the benefit of public schools equally to black and white, and empowering the Legislature to confer the elective franchise upon the colored man. Their Legislature has already voted to ratify the constitutional amendment recently passed by Congress, abolishing slavery throughout the nation. These twelve thousand persons are thus fully committed to the Union, and to perpetual freedom in the state — committed to the very things, and nearly all the things the nation wants — and they ask the nations recognition and it's assistance to make good their committal. Now, if we reject, and spurn them, we do our utmost to disorganize and disperse them. We in effect say to the white men "You are worthless, or worse — we will neither help you, nor be helped by you." To the blacks we say "This cup of liberty which these, your old masters, hold to your lips, we will dash from you, and leave you to the chances of gathering the spilled and scattered contents in some vague and undefined when, where, and how." If this course, discouraging and paralyzing both white and black, has any tendency to bring Louisiana into proper practical relations with the Union, I have, so far, been unable to perceive it. If, on the contrary, we recognize, and sustain the new government of Louisiana the converse of all this is made true. We encourage the hearts, and nerve the arms of the twelve thousand to adhere to their work, and argue for it, and proselyte for it, and fight for it, and feed it, and grow it, and ripen it to a complete success. The colored man too, in seeing all united for him, is inspired with vigilance, and energy, and daring, to the same end. Grant that he desires the elective franchise, will he not attain it sooner by saving the already advanced steps toward it, than by running backward over them? Concede that the new government of Louisiana is only to what it should be as the egg is to the fowl, we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it? Again, if we reject Louisiana, we also reject one vote in favor of the proposed amendment to the national Constitution. To meet this proposition, it has been argued that no more than three fourths of those States which have not attempted secession are necessary to validly ratify the amendment. I do not commit myself against this, further than to say that such a ratification would be questionable, and sure to be persistently questioned; while a ratification by three-fourths of all the States would be unquestioned and unquestionable.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Last public address (1865)

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston photo

“Lord Palmerston: Then you did not vote for me, friend Rowcliffe; you preferred voting for a Tory.
William Rowcliffe: I did not vote for you, my Lord, for if I had, I should have voted for a Tory.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

During the general election of July 1865 where the Chartist Rowcliffe voted for a Conservative and another Liberal in order to oust Palmerston from the two-member constituency; quoted in F. J. Snell, Palmerston's Borough (Tiverton, 1894), pp. 107-112.
1860s

Ronald Reagan photo

“I would have voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

As quoted in Los Angeles Times (17 June 1966)
1960s

Abraham Lincoln photo
Abraham Lincoln photo

“Let us notice some more of the stale charges against Republicans. You say we are sectional. We deny it. That makes an issue; and the burden of proof is upon you. You produce your proof; and what is it? Why, that our party has no existence in your section — gets no votes in your section. The fact is substantially true; but does it prove the issue? If it does, then in case we should, without change of principle, begin to get votes in your section, we should thereby cease to be sectional. You cannot escape this conclusion; and yet, are you willing to abide by it? If you are, you will probably soon find that we have ceased to be sectional, for we shall get votes in your section this very year. The fact that we get no votes in your section is a fact of your making, and not of ours. And if there be fault in that fact, that fault is primarily yours, and remains so until you show that we repel you by some wrong principle or practice. If we do repel you by any wrong principle or practice, the fault is ours; but this brings you to where you ought to have started — to a discussion of the right or wrong of our principle. If our principle, put in practice, would wrong your section for the benefit of ours, or for any other object, then our principle, and we with it, are sectional, and are justly opposed and denounced as such. Meet us, then, on the question of whether our principle, put in practice, would wrong your section; and so meet it as if it were possible that something may be said on our side. Do you accept the challenge? No? Then you really believe that the principle which our fathers who framed the Government under which we live thought so clearly right as to adopt it, and indorse it again and again, upon their official oaths, is, in fact, so clearly wrong as to demand your condemnation without a moment's consideration.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Allow the humblest man an equal chance (1860)

Thomas Paine photo
Jair Bolsonaro photo

“There is no doubt. I would launch a coup on the same day. [Congress] doesn't work and I'm sure that at least 90% of the population would applaud. Congress nowadays does nothing; it votes only for what the president wants. If he's who rules, who decides and who gloats above the Congress, then let the coup be launched, let it be a dictatorship.”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

At the program Câmera Aberta at Band on 23 May 1999 about what he would do on the first day as president of Brazil. O dia que Bolsonaro quis matar FHC, sonegar impostos e declarar guerra civil http://www.gazetadopovo.com.br/politica/republica/o-dia-que-bolsonaro-quis-matar-fhc-sonegar-impostos-e-declarar-guerra-civil-8mtm0u0so6pk88kqnqo0n1l69. Gazeta do Povo (10 October 2017).

Barack Obama photo
Chester A. Arthur photo
Barack Obama photo
Barack Obama photo
Abraham Lincoln photo
Saul Bellow photo
Kurt Vonnegut photo
Abraham Lincoln photo
Mark Twain photo
Barack Obama photo

“But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it - those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations - those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their world-view in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years.
That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop, or the beauty shop, or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failing. And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour of American life occurs on Sunday morning.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2008, A More Perfect Union (March 2008)

“Thanks to guys like Boss Tweed, famous for saying, 'I don't give a damn who does the voting, as long as I do the nominating,' there hasn't been an honest election in the USA since sometime around the War Between the States.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"Libertarians: The Connies Speak Out (Part Two)," http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2005/tle339-20051002-02.html 2 October 2005.

Winston S. Churchill photo

“if you ask me this election could end about 100 different ways:
1) trump gets 0% of the vote
2) trump gets 1% of the vote
3) trump gets 2% o”

Dril Twitter user

[ Link to tweet https://twitter.com/dril/status/796037882783928321]
Tweets by year, 2016

Antonin Scalia photo
Ahmad Shah Massoud photo
Ralph Nader photo
Barack Obama photo

“Well, let me be absolutely clear. I did not mean that I was going to be running for anything anytime soon. So, what I meant is that it’s important for me to take some time to process this amazing experience that we’ve gone through; to make sure that my wife, with whom I will be celebrating a 25th anniversary this year, is willing to re-up and put up with me for a little bit longer. […] But there’s a difference between that normal functioning of politics and certain issues or certain moments where I think our core values may be at stake. I put in that category if I saw systematic discrimination being ratified in some fashion. I put in that category explicit or functional obstacles to people being able to vote, to exercise their franchise. I’d put in that category institutional efforts to silence dissent or the press. And for me at least, I would put in that category efforts to roundup kids who have grown up here and for all practical purposes are American kids, and send them someplace else, when they love this country. They are our kids’ friends and their classmates, and are now entering into community colleges or in some cases serving in our military, that the notion that we would just arbitrarily or because of politics punish those kids, when they didn’t do anything wrong themselves, I think would be something that would merit me speaking out.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Partial answers on the questions: "And what did you mean when you said you would come back? Would you lobby Congress? Maybe explore the political arena again?"
2017, Final News Conference as President (January 2017)

Howard Zinn photo

“Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens.”

Howard Zinn (1922–2010) author and historian

"Election Madness" http://www.progressive.org/mag_zinn0308 The Progressive (March 2008)

Murray N. Rothbard photo
Malcolm X photo
Edward Bernays photo
Barack Obama photo
Steven Weinberg photo
Susan B. Anthony photo

“Here, in the first paragraph of the Declaration [of Independence], is the assertion of the natural right of all to the ballot; for how can "the consent of the governed" be given, if the right to vote be denied?”

Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) American women's rights activist

On the United States Declaration of Independence in her "Is It a Crime for a Citizen of the United States to Vote?" speech before her trial for voting (1873)

Barack Obama photo
Barack Obama photo
Barack Obama photo

“And at the time the Republican Congress and a Senate candidate by the name of Mitt Romney — [crowd boos] No, no, no — Don't boo, vote. Vote! Voting's the best revenge.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Springfield, Ohio campaign event http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/11/02/remarks-president-springfield-oh,
quoted in * 2012-11-02
Obama to supporters: Voting 'best revenge' against Mitt Romney
Joe
Newby
Examiner
http://www.examiner.com/node/54880521
2012-11-03 and * 2012-11-03
Obama tells crowd 'voting is the best revenge'; Romney freaks out
Laura
Clawson
Daily Kos
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/11/03/1154805/-Obama-tells-crowd-voting-is-the-best-revenge-Romney-freaks-out
2012-11-03
2012

Barack Obama photo

“One of the great things about America is that individual citizens and groups of citizens can petition their government, can protest, can speak truth to power. And that is sometimes messy and controversial. But because of that ability to protest and engage in free speech, America, over time, has gotten better. We've all benefited from that.

The abolition movement was contentious. The effort for women to get the right to vote was contentious and messy. There were times when activists might have engaged in rhetoric that was overheated and occasionally counterproductive. But the point was to raise issues so that we, as a society, could grapple with it. The same was true with the Civil Rights Movement, the union movement, the environmental movement, the anti-war movement during Vietnam. And I think what you're seeing now is part of that longstanding tradition.

What I would say is this -- that whenever those of us who are concerned about fairness in the criminal justice system attack police officers, you are doing a disservice to the cause. First of all, any violence directed at police officers is a reprehensible crime and needs to be prosecuted. But even rhetorically, if we paint police in broad brush, without recognizing that the vast majority of police officers are doing a really good job and are trying to protect people and do so fairly and without racial bias, if our rhetoric does not recognize that, then we're going to lose allies in the reform cause.

Now, in a movement like Black Lives Matter, there's always going to be some folks who say things that are stupid, or imprudent, or overgeneralized, or harsh. And I don't think that you can hold well-meaning activists who are doing the right thing and peacefully protesting responsible for everything that is uttered at a protest site.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Remarks by President Obama and Prime Minister Rajoy of Spain After Bilateral Meeting https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/07/10/remarks-president-obama-and-prime-minister-rajoy-spain-after-bilateral (10 July 2016)
2016

Barack Obama photo
Abraham Lincoln photo

“We think Slavery a great moral wrong, and while we do not claim the right to touch it where it exists, we wish to treat it as a wrong in the Territories, where our votes will reach it. We think that a respect for ourselves, a regard for future generations and for the God that made us, require that we put down this wrong where our votes will properly reach it. We think that species of labor an injury to free white men — in short, we think Slavery a great moral, social and political evil, tolerable only because, and so far as its actual existence makes it necessary to tolerate it, and that beyond that, it ought to be treated as a wrong.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Allow the humblest man an equal chance (1860)
Context: To us it appears natural to think that slaves are human beings; men, not property; that some of the things, at least, stated about men in the Declaration of Independence apply to them as well as to us. I say, we think, most of us, that this Charter of Freedom applies to the slave as well as to ourselves, that the class of arguments put forward to batter down that idea, are also calculated to break down the very idea of a free government, even for white men, and to undermine the very foundations of free society. We think Slavery a great moral wrong, and while we do not claim the right to touch it where it exists, we wish to treat it as a wrong in the Territories, where our votes will reach it. We think that a respect for ourselves, a regard for future generations and for the God that made us, require that we put down this wrong where our votes will properly reach it. We think that species of labor an injury to free white men — in short, we think Slavery a great moral, social and political evil, tolerable only because, and so far as its actual existence makes it necessary to tolerate it, and that beyond that, it ought to be treated as a wrong.

Charan Singh photo
Malcolm X photo

“What is a Dixiecrat? A Democrat. A Dixiecrat is nothing but a Democrat in disguise. […] The Dixiecrats in Washington, D. C., control the key committees that run the government. The only reason the Dixiecrats control these committees is because they have seniority. The only reason they have seniority is because they come from states where Negroes can’t vote. This is not even a government that’s based on democracy. It is not a government that is made up of representatives of the people. Half of the people in the South can’t even vote. Eastland is not even supposed to be in Washington. Half of the senators and congressmen who occupy these key positions in Washington, D. C., are there illegally, are there unconstitutionally.
These senators and congressmen actually violate the constitutional amendments that guarantee the people of that particular state or county the right to vote. And the Constitution itself has within it the machinery to expel any representative from a state where the voting rights of the people are violated. You don’t even need new legislation. Any person in Congress right now, who is there from a state or a district where the voting rights of the people are violated, that particular person should be expelled from Congress. And when you expel him, you’ve removed one of the obstacles in the path of any real meaningful legislation in this country. In fact, when you expel them, you don’t need new legislation, because they will be replaced by black representatives from counties and districts where the black man is in the majority, not in the minority.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Cleveland, Ohio (April 3, 1964)

Luis Muñoz Marín photo

“If you want to sell your vote, go ahead; it's a free country. But be sure you get something for it… You can't get both justice and the two dollars.”

Luis Muñoz Marín (1898–1980) American politician

Quoted by TIME Magazine on March 31, 1941 when commenting on Puerto Rican jíbaros accepting $2 bribes for their votes. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,765338-1,00.html

Charan Singh photo
Peter Thiel photo

“[The media] never takes [Trump] seriously, but it always takes him literally. I think a lot of the voters who vote for Trump take Trump seriously, but not literally.”

Peter Thiel (1967) American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and hedge fund manager

Speech at the National Press Club http://www.press.org/sites/default/files/20161031_thiel.pdf (October 31, 2016)

Barack Obama photo

“We also know that centuries of racial discrimination -- of slavery, and subjugation, and Jim Crow -- they didn’t simply vanish with the end of lawful segregation. They didn’t just stop when Dr. King made a speech, or the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act were signed. Race relations have improved dramatically in my lifetime. Those who deny it are dishonoring the struggles that helped us achieve that progress. But we know -- but, America, we know that bias remains. We know it. Whether you are black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or of Middle Eastern descent, we have all seen this bigotry in our own lives at some point. […] Although most of us do our best to guard against it and teach our children better, none of us is entirely innocent. No institution is entirely immune. And so when African Americans from all walks of life, from different communities across the country, voice a growing despair over what they perceive to be unequal treatment; when study after study shows that whites and people of color experience the criminal justice system differently, so that if you’re black you’re more likely to be pulled over or searched or arrested, more likely to get longer sentences, more likely to get the death penalty for the same crime; when mothers and fathers raise their kids right and have “the talk” about how to respond if stopped by a police officer -- “yes, sir,” “no, sir” -- but still fear that something terrible may happen when their child walks out the door, still fear that kids being stupid and not quite doing things right might end in tragedy -- when all this takes place more than 50 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, we cannot simply turn away and dismiss those in peaceful protest as troublemakers or paranoid. We can’t simply dismiss it as a symptom of political correctness or reverse racism. To have your experience denied like that, dismissed by those in authority, dismissed perhaps even by your white friends and coworkers and fellow church members again and again and again -- it hurts. Surely we can see that, all of us.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2016, Memorial Service for Fallen Dallas Police Officers (July 2016)

Barack Obama photo
Barack Obama photo
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu photo
Abraham Lincoln photo

“This was the only time Abraham was ever beaten on a direct vote of the people.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, A Short Autobiography (1860)
Context: The of 1832 broke out. Abraham joined a volunteer company, and, to his own surprise, was elected captain of it. He says he has not since had any success in life which gave him so much satisfaction. He went to the campaign, served near three months, met the ordinary hardships of such an expedition, but was in no battle. He now owns, in Iowa, the land upon which his own warrants for the service were located. Returning from the campaign, and encouraged by his great popularity among his immediate neighbors, he the same year ran for the legislature, and was beaten — his own precinct, however, casting its votes 277 for and 7 against him... This was the only time Abraham was ever beaten on a direct vote of the people.<!--pp.16-17

Abraham Lincoln photo

“The "Journal" and "Globe" also show him voting that the war was unnecessarily and unconstitutionally begun by the President of the United States.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, A Short Autobiography (1860)
Context: In 1846 he was elected to the lower House of Congress, and served one term only, commencing in December, 1847, and ending with the inauguration of General Taylor, in March, 1849. All the battles of the Mexican war had been fought before Mr. Lincoln took his seat in Congress but the American army was still in Mexico, and the treaty of peace was not fully and formally ratified till the June afterwards.... he voted for all the supply measures that came up, and for all the measures in any way favorable to the officers, soldiers, and their families, who conducted the war through: with the exception that some of these measures passed without yeas and nays, leaving no record as to how particular men voted. The "Journal" and "Globe" also show him voting that the war was unnecessarily and unconstitutionally begun by the President of the United States.

Barack Obama photo

“The arc of the moral universe may bend towards justice, but it doesn’t bend on its own. To secure the gains this country has made requires constant vigilance, not complacency. Whether by challenging those who erect new barriers to the vote, or ensuring that the scales of justice work equally for all, and the criminal justice system is not simply a pipeline from underfunded schools to overcrowded jails, it requires vigilance. And we'll suffer the occasional setback. But we will win these fights.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2013, "Let Freedom Ring" Ceremony (August 2013)
Context: To dismiss the magnitude of this progress -- to suggest, as some sometimes do, that little has changed -- that dishonors the courage and the sacrifice of those who paid the price to march in those years. Medgar Evers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, Martin Luther King Jr. -- they did not die in vain. Their victory was great. But we would dishonor those heroes as well to suggest that the work of this nation is somehow complete. The arc of the moral universe may bend towards justice, but it doesn’t bend on its own. To secure the gains this country has made requires constant vigilance, not complacency. Whether by challenging those who erect new barriers to the vote, or ensuring that the scales of justice work equally for all, and the criminal justice system is not simply a pipeline from underfunded schools to overcrowded jails, it requires vigilance. And we'll suffer the occasional setback. But we will win these fights. This country has changed too much. People of goodwill, regardless of party, are too plentiful for those with ill will to change history’s currents.

Barack Obama photo

“Citizenship means standing up for everyone's right to vote.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Sixth State of the Union Address (January 2014)
Context: Citizenship means standing up for everyone's right to vote. Last year, part of the Voting Rights Act was weakened, but conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats are working together to strengthen it. And the bipartisan commission I appointed, chaired by my campaign lawyer and Governor Romney's campaign lawyer, came together and have offered reforms so that no one has to wait more than a half hour to vote. Let's support these efforts. It should be the power of our vote, not the size of our bank account, that drives our democracy.

Abraham Lincoln photo

“Mr. Lincoln's reasons for the opinion expressed by this vote were briefly that the President had sent General Taylor into an inhabited part of the country belonging to Mexico, and not to the United States, and thereby had provoked the first act of hostility”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, A Short Autobiography (1860)
Context: Mr. Lincoln's reasons for the opinion expressed by this vote were briefly that the President had sent General Taylor into an inhabited part of the country belonging to Mexico, and not to the United States, and thereby had provoked the first act of hostility, in fact the commencement of the war; that the place, being the country bordering on the east bank of the Rio Grande, was inhabited by native Mexicans born there under the Mexican Government, and had never submitted to, nor been conquered by, Texas or the United States, nor transferred to either by treaty; that although Texas claimed the Rio Grande as her boundary, Mexico had never recognized it, and neither Texas nor the United States had ever enforced it; that there was a broad desert between that and the country over which Texas had actual control; that the country where hostilities commenced, having once belonged to Mexico, must remain so until it was somehow legally transferred, which had never been done.
Mr. Lincoln thought the act of sending an armed force among the Mexicans was unnecessary, inasmuch as Mexico was in no way molesting or menacing the United States or the people thereof; and that it was unconstitutional, because the power of levying war is vested in Congress, and not in the President. He thought the principal motive for the act was to divert public attention from the surrender of "Fifty-four, forty, or fight" to Great Britain, on the Oregon boundary question.

Barack Obama photo

“You and I, as citizens, have the power to set this country’s course. You and I, as citizens, have the obligation to shape the debates of our time -- not only with the votes we cast, but with the voices we lift in defense of our most ancient values and enduring ideals.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2013, Second Inaugural Address (January 2013)
Context: My fellow Americans, the oath I have sworn before you today, like the one recited by others who serve in this Capitol, was an oath to God and country, not party or faction. And we must faithfully execute that pledge during the duration of our service. But the words I spoke today are not so different from the oath that is taken each time a soldier signs up for duty or an immigrant realizes her dream. My oath is not so different from the pledge we all make to the flag that waves above and that fills our hearts with pride. They are the words of citizens and they represent our greatest hope. You and I, as citizens, have the power to set this country’s course. You and I, as citizens, have the obligation to shape the debates of our time -- not only with the votes we cast, but with the voices we lift in defense of our most ancient values and enduring ideals.

Abraham Lincoln photo

“The election of 1834 came, and he was then elected to the legislature by the highest vote cast for any candidate. Major ,”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, A Short Autobiography (1860)
Context: A man offered to sell, and did sell, to Abraham and another as poor as himself, an old stock of goods, upon credit. They opened as merchants; and he says that was the store. Of course they did nothing but get deeper and deeper in debt. He was appointed postmaster at New Salem — the office being too insignificant to make his politics an objection. The store winked out. The surveyor of Sangamon offered to depute to Abraham that portion of his work which was within his part of the County. He accepted, procured a compass and chain, studied Flint https://books.google.com/books?id=iakIAAAAIAAJ and Gibson https://books.google.com/books?id=SIERLtc5aAYC a little, and went at it. This procured bread, and kept soul and body together. The election of 1834 came, and he was then elected to the legislature by the highest vote cast for any candidate. Major, then in full practice of the law, was also elected. During the canvass, in a private conversation, he encouraged Abraham to study law.<!--pp.18-19

Thomas Paine photo

“To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery, for slavery consists in being subject to the will of another, and he that has not a vote in the election of representatives is in this case.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

1790s, First Principles of Government (1795)
Context: The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery, for slavery consists in being subject to the will of another, and he that has not a vote in the election of representatives is in this case.

Francisco Franco photo

“We do not believe in government through the voting booth.”

Francisco Franco (1892–1975) Spanish general and dictator

Statement during the civil war, cited in 1938 by TIME Magazine, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,915079,00.html, also cited in John A. Crittenden, Parties and elections in the United States, Prentice-Hall, 1982, (p.6).
Context: We do not believe in government through the voting booth. The Spanish national will was never freely expressed through the ballot box. Spain has no foolish dreams.

“If the prophets were to be elected by the "popular votes" of democracy, then no prophet could have ever been a prophet.”

Muhammad Asadullah Al-Ghalib (1948) Bangladeshi academic

Speech in a workshop, Rajshahi, 2013, (English Translation).[citation needed]
From Speeches

Theodore Roosevelt photo

“Such a movement directly contravenes the spirit of the Constitution itself. Washington and his associates believed that it was essential to the existence of this Republic that there should never be any union of Church and State; and such union is partially accomplished wherever a given creed is aided by the State or when any public servant is elected or defeated because of his creed. The Constitution explicitly forbids the requiring of any religious test as a qualification for holding office. To impose such a test by popular vote is as bad as to impose it by law. To vote either for or against a man because of his creed is to impose upon him a religious test and is a clear violation of the spirit of the Constitution.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, Address to the Knights of Columbus (1915)
Context: One of the most important things to secure for him is the right to hold and to express the religious views that best meet his own soul needs. Any political movement directed against anybody of our fellow- citizens because of their religious creed is a grave offense against American principles and American institutions. It is a wicked thing either to support or to oppose a man because of the creed he professes. This applies to Jew and Gentile, to Catholic and Protestant, and to the man who would be regarded as unorthodox by all of them alike. Political movements directed against men because of their religious belief, and intended to prevent men of that creed from holding office, have never accomplished anything but harm. This was true in the days of the ‘Know-Nothing’ and Native-American parties in the middle of the last century; and it is just as true to-day. Such a movement directly contravenes the spirit of the Constitution itself. Washington and his associates believed that it was essential to the existence of this Republic that there should never be any union of Church and State; and such union is partially accomplished wherever a given creed is aided by the State or when any public servant is elected or defeated because of his creed. The Constitution explicitly forbids the requiring of any religious test as a qualification for holding office. To impose such a test by popular vote is as bad as to impose it by law. To vote either for or against a man because of his creed is to impose upon him a religious test and is a clear violation of the spirit of the Constitution.

Ludwig von Mises photo

“The capitalist system of production is an economic democracy in which every penny gives a right to vote.”

The consumers are the sovereign people. The capitalists, the entrepreneurs, and the farmers are the people’s mandatories. If they do not obey, if they fail to produce, at the lowest possible cost, what the consumers are asking for, they lose their office. Their task is service to the consumer. Profit and loss are the instruments by means of which the consumers keep a tight rein on all business activities.
Source: Bureaucracy (1944), Chapter I: Profit Management, § 1: The Operation of The Market Mechanism

Abraham Lincoln photo

“In two of the five states — New Jersey and North Carolina — that then gave the free negro the right of voting, the right has since been taken away”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1850s, Speech on the Dred Scott Decision (1857)
Context: Chief Justice does not directly assert, but plainly assumes, as a fact, that the public estimate of the black man is more favorable now than it was in the days of the Revolution. This assumption is a mistake. In some trifling particulars, the condition of that race has been ameliorated; but, as a whole, in this country, the change between then and now is decidedly the other way; and their ultimate destiny has never appeared so hopeless as in the last three or four years. In two of the five states — New Jersey and North Carolina — that then gave the free negro the right of voting, the right has since been taken away; and in a third — New York — it has been greatly abridged; while it has not been extended, so far as I know, to a single additional state, though the number of the States has more than doubled.

Lewis Mumford photo

“Every new baby is a blind desperate vote for survival”

Source: The City in History (1961), Ch. 18
Context: Every new baby is a blind desperate vote for survival: people who find themselves unable to register an effective political protest against extermination do so by a biological act.

P. J. O'Rourke photo
Malcolm X photo

“The same government that you go abroad to fight for and die for is the government that is in a conspiracy to deprive you of your voting rights, deprive you of your economic opportunities, deprive you of decent housing, deprive you of decent education. You don’t need to go to the employer alone, it is the government itself, the government of America, that is responsible for the oppression and exploitation and degradation of black people in this country.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Cleveland, Ohio (April 3, 1964)
Context: You and I in America are faced not with a segregationist conspiracy, we’re faced with a government conspiracy. Everyone who’s filibustering is a senator—that’s the government. Everyone who’s finagling in Washington, D. C., is a congressman—that’s the government. You don’t have anybody putting blocks in your path but people who are a part of the government. The same government that you go abroad to fight for and die for is the government that is in a conspiracy to deprive you of your voting rights, deprive you of your economic opportunities, deprive you of decent housing, deprive you of decent education. You don’t need to go to the employer alone, it is the government itself, the government of America, that is responsible for the oppression and exploitation and degradation of black people in this country. And you should drop it in their lap. This government has failed the Negro. This so-called democracy has failed the Negro. And all these white liberals have definitely failed the Negro.