American Democracy

Famous quotes containing the words american and/or democracy:

“The compulsion to do good is an innate American trait. Only North Americans seem to believe that they always should, may, and actually can choose somebody with whom to share their blessings. Ultimately this attitude leads to bombing people into the acceptance of gifts.”
—Ivan Illich (b. 1926)

“In Italy, for thirty years, under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed. But they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, and they had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”
—Graham Greene (1904–1991)