Happy Election Day

Some quotes to read while you wait to vote or for election returns or for a concession speech or for the end of the world as we know it.

Democracy is not something you believe in or a place to hang your hat, but it's something you do. You participate. If you stop doing it, democracy crumbles. –Abbie Hoffman

Elections belong to the people. It is their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters. –Abraham Lincoln

Democracy is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people. –Harry Emerson Fosdick

Democracy cannot be forced upon a society, neither is it a gift that can be held forever. It has to be struggled hard for and defended everyday anew. –Heinz Galinski

The only way to make sure people you agree with can speak is to support the rights of people you don't agree with. –Eleanor Holmes Norton

Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government. –Thomas Jefferson

Elections are a good deal like marriages. There's no accounting for anyone's taste. Every time we see a bridegroom we wonder why she ever picked him, and it's the same with public officials. –Will Rogers

As a rule, dictatorships guarantee safe streets and terror of the doorbell. In democracy the streets may be unsafe after dark, but the most likely visitor in the early hours will be the milkman. –Adam Michnik

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. –Benjamin Franklin

The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment. –Robert M. Hutchins