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Full Idea
No government is so subject to civil wars and internal agitations as a democratic or popular one, since there is none that tends so forcefully and continuously to change its form, or that demands greater vigilance and courage to keep its form.
Gist of Idea
Democracy leads to internal strife, as people struggle to maintain or change ways of ruling
Source
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], III.05)
Book Ref
Rousseau,Jean-Jacques: 'The Basic Political Writings', ed/tr. Cress,Donald A. [Hackett 1987], p.180
A Reaction
We would like to think that a robust democracy, with a free press, can cope with all this strife and still survive. He may be thinking of the English Civil War. Democracies seem to be more conservative about the structure of government.
| 22575 | Ultimate democracy is tyranny [Aristotle] |
| 5895 | If one despises illiterate mechanics individually, they are not worth more collectively [Cicero] |
| 13557 | Unfortunately the majority do not tend to favour what is best [Seneca] |
| 19828 | Democracy leads to internal strife, as people struggle to maintain or change ways of ruling [Rousseau] |
| 19835 | When ministers change the state changes, because they always reverse policies [Rousseau] |
| 22394 | Democracy diminishes mankind, making them mediocre and lowering their value [Nietzsche] |
| 18331 | Democracy is organisational power in decline [Nietzsche] |
| 23166 | In democracy we are more aware of being governed than of our tiny share in government [Russell] |
| 23169 | Democratic institutions become impossible in a fanatical democracy [Russell] |
| 21527 | On every new question the majority is always wrong at first [Russell] |
| 21526 | Unfortunately ordinary voters can't detect insincerity [Russell] |
| 23842 | Party politics in a democracy can't avoid an anti-democratic party [Weil] |
| 7594 | Democrats are committed to a belief and to its opposite, if the majority prefer the latter [Scruton] |