The most important lesson in the writing trade is that any manuscript is improved if you cut away the fat.
Robert A. HeinleinRead
Democracy is four wolves and a sheep voting on dinner.
Interpretation
This quote illustrates the potential tyranny of the majority in a democracy.
Robert A. Heinlein's quote compares democracy to a scenario where the interests of a few dominant wolves outweigh those of an individual sheep, highlighting the risk that majority rule can lead to the oppression of minority groups. In essence, it serves as a cautionary reminder of how democratic processes can be manipulated or result in decisions that favor the powerful over the vulnerable.
In practice
During a political debate to illustrate the need for protecting minority rights.
The most important lesson in the writing trade is that any manuscript is improved if you cut away the fat.
An armed society is a polite society.
Democracy is a poor system of government at best; the only thing that can honestly be said in its favor is that it is eight times as good as any other method the human race has ever tried.
Long human words (the longer the better) were easy, unmistakable, and rarely changed their meanings . . . but short words were slippery, unpredictable, changing their meanings without any pattern.
Progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things.
When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere.
The founding fathers, in their wisdom, devised a method by which our republic can take one hundred of its most prominent numbskulls and keep them out of the private sector where they might do actual harm.
The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.
Do the elected officials in Washington stand with ordinary Americans - working families, children, the elderly, the poor - or will the extraordinary power of billionaire campaign contributors and Big Money prevail? The American people, by the millions, must send Congress the answer to that question.
I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
A properly functioning democracy depends on an informed electorate.
The U.S. should never get involved where we have no clear national interest. We should not intervene militarily in a country like Syria, where we canβt separate friend from foe and might end up arming the very people who hate us the most.
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