Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no need of change.
The greatest task of democracy, its ritual and feast - is choice.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The essence of democracy lies in the ability to make choices. It highlights the importance of choice as a fundamental aspect of democratic life.
H.G. Wells emphasizes that at the heart of democracy is the act of making choices. He describes this choice not just as a task but as a celebration, pointing to the idea that democracy is enriched by the diversity of options available to its citizens. The quote suggests that the opportunities to choose are what make democracy both a serious responsibility and a joyous occasion.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a political speech about the importance of civic engagement, one might say, 'As H.G. Wells stated, the greatest task of democracy is choice.'
More from H. G. Wells
All quotes →He spares no resource in telling of his dead inventions... Bare verbs he rarely tolerates. He splits infinitives and fills them up with adverbial stuffing. He presses the passing colloquialism into his service. His vast paragraphis sweat and struggle; the
It [a new world order] needs only that the governments of Britain, the United States, France, Germany, and Russia should get together in order to set up an effective control of currency, credit, production, and distribution – that is to say, an effective ‘dictatorship of prosperity,’ for the whole world. The other sixty odd States would have to join in or accommodate themselves to the over-ruling decisions of these major Powers.
Things that would have made fame of a less clever man seemed tricks in his hands. It is a mistake to do things too easily.
But I was too restless to watch long; I'm too Occidental for a long vigil. I could work at a problem for years, but to wait inactive for twenty-four hours - that's another matter.
I came out for exercise, gentle exercise, and to notice the scenery and to botanise. And no sooner do I get on that accursed machine than off I go hammer and tongs; I never look to right or left, never notice a flower, never see a view - get hot, juicy, red - like a grilled chop. Get me on that machine and I have to go. I go scorching along the road, and cursing aloud at myself for doing it.
Similar quotes
A text is not a text unless it hides from the first comer, from the first glance, the law of its composition and the rules of its game. A text remains, moreover, forever imperceptible. Its laws and rules are not, however, harbored in the inaccessibility of a secret; it is simply that they can never be booked, in the present, into anything that could rigorously be called a perception.
Because your brain uses information from the areas around the blind spot to make a reasonable guess about what the blind spot would see if only it weren't blind, and then your brain fills in the scene with this information. That's right, it invents things, creates things, makes stuff up! It doesn't consult you about this, doesn't seek your approval. It just makes its best guess about the nature of the missing information and proceeds to fill in the scene.
The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny.
The greatest incitement to guilt is the hope of sinning with impunity.
Truly, nothing in the world has so occupied my thoughts as this I, this riddle, the fact I am alive, that I am separated and isolated from all others, that I am Siddhartha! And about nothing in the world do I know less about than me, about Siddhartha!
Our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty.