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Thomas Jefferson

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The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.
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This quotation first appeared in Dreams Come Due: Government and Economics as if Freedom Mattered (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986), p. 312, written under the pseudonym of John Galt. It is there attributed to Jefferson, but is not found anywhere in his works. See the Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia.

 
Thomas Jefferson

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A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy.

 
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If the great Western experiment fails and we end up living in totalitarian war-on-terrorism states, one day someone’s going to say, 'Well democracy doesn’t work because they had to give it up’.

 
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