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Quotes about voting

32 quotes from 26 people

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He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of this country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man.
Samuel Adams1722–1803Essay published in The Advertiser (1748) and later reprinted in The Life and Public Service of Samuel Adams, Volume 1 (1865), by William Vincent Wells
Here, in the first paragraph of the Declaration [of Independence], is the assertion of the natural right of all to the ballot; for how can “the consent of the governed” be given, if the right to vote be denied?
Susan B. Anthony1820–1906On the United States Declaration of Independence in her “Is It a Crime for a Citizen of the United States to Vote?” speech before her trial for voting (1873)
- Democracy
Vote, v. The instrument and symbol of a freeman’s power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.
Ambrose Bierce1842–1914The Devil’s Dictionary (1911)
- Comedy
It is fast approaching the point where I don’t want to elect anyone stupid enough to want the job.
EBErma Bombeck1927–1996
This is how election results are disputed in a banana republic — not our democratic republic.
George W. Bushborn 1946Comments on the storming of US Capitol (2021)
- Democracy
Vote early and vote often.
Al Capone1899–1947
There’s something more powerful than bombs, and that’s your vote. People must vote!
Robert De Niroborn 1943Catherine Shoad, “Robert De Niro: ‘Votes are more powerful than bombs’”, The Guardian, (October 26, 2018)
Let us not commit ourselves to the absurd and senseless dogma that the color of the skin shall be the basis of suffrage, the talisman of liberty.
James A. Garfield1831–1881Oration at Ravenna, Ohio (1865)
- Race
Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg1933–2020Dissenting, Shelby County v. Holder (2013)
- Laws
Treat the negro as a citizen and a voter, as he is and must remain, and soon parties will be divided, not on the color line, but on principle.
Ulysses S. Grant1822–1885Sixth State of the Union Address (1874)
- Race
Suffrage once given can never be taken away, and all that remains for us now is to make good that gift by protecting those who have received it.
Ulysses S. Grant1822–1885Conversation reported in John Russell Young, Around the World with General Grant (1879), p. 362
Let the black man vote when he is fit to vote; prohibit the white man voting when he is unfit to vote.
Warren G. Harding1865–1923Speech at Birmingham, Alabama, published in the Birmingham Post (27 October 1921) quoted in Political Power in Birmingham, 1871-1921 (1977) by Carl V. Harris (1977) University of Tennessee Press, .
- Race
The freeman casting with unpurchased hand
The vote that shakes the turrets of the land.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.1809–1894“Poetry, a Metrical Essay”, Poems (1836)
We’d all like t’vote fer th’best man, but he’s never a candidate.
Kin Hubbard1868–1930The Best of Kin Hubbard (1984)
This right to vote is the basic right without which all others are meaningless. It gives people, people as individuals, control over their own destinies.
Lyndon B. Johnson1908–1973Voting Rights Act signing speech (1965)