William Hogarth, “Soliciting Votes” (1754), oil on canvas, 101,6 x 127 cm, Sir John Soane’s Museum, London (image via Web Gallery of Art)
This is it. Vote.
The great thing about democracy is that it gives every voter a chance to do something stupid.
—Art Spander
Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half.
—Gore Vidal
The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.
—John F. Kennedy, speech at Vanderbilt University, May 18, 1963
A vote is like a rifle; it’s usefulness depends on the character of the user.
—Theodore Roosevelt
The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.
—Joseph Stalin
Hell, I never vote for anybody. I always vote against.
—W. C. Fields
If the gods had intended us to vote they would have given us candidates.
—Howard Zinn
If pigs could vote, the man with the slop bucket would be elected swineherd every time, no matter how much slaughtering he did on the side.
—Orson Scott Card
Democracy will prevail when men believe the vote of Judas as good as that of Jesus Christ.
—Thomas Carlyle
Whenever a fellow tells me he is bipartisan, I know he’s going to vote against me.
—Harry S Truman
Republicans have been accused of abandoning the poor. It’s the other way around. They never vote for us.
—Dan Quayle
The polls […] indicate that Nixon will get a comfortable majority of the youth vote. And that he might carry all fifty states. […] This may be the year when we finally come face to face with ourselves — that we really are just a nation of […] used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns, and no qualms at all about killing anyone else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.
—Hunter S. Thompson, from Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail, written on the eve of the 1972 election
Every new baby is a blind desperate vote for survival: people who find themselves unable to register an effective political protest against extermination do so by a biological act.
-Lewis Mumford
