Quote#Politics & Power
Sure the people are stupid: the human race is stupid. Sure Congress…
Quote byBernard DeVoto · 1897–1955
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: "But Sometimes They Vote Right Too", in Harper's, vol. 201, no. 1206 (November, 1950), p. 67. Collected in The Easy Chair (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin Co., 1955), pt. 4, sec. 3 (p. 198).
English (original)
Sure the people are stupid: the human race is stupid. Sure Congress is an inefficient instrument of government. But the people are not stupid enough to abandon representative government for any other kind, including government by the guy who knows.
— Bernard DeVoto
More from Bernard DeVoto
When evening quickens in the street, comes a pause in the day's occupation that is known as the cocktail hour.
Nothing can be done with people who put olives in martinis, presumably because in some desolate childhood hour someone refused them a dill pickle and so they go through life lusting for the taste of brine.
The trouble with the sacred Individual is that he has no significance except as he can acquire it from others, from the social whole.
The trouble with Reason is that it becomes meaningless at the exact point where it refuses to act.
You can no more keep a martini in the refrigerator than you can keep a kiss there. The proper union of gin and vermouth is a great and sudden glory; it is one of the happiest marriages on earth, and one of the shortest-lived. The fragile …
This is the violet hour, the hour of hush and wonder, when the affections glow and valor is reborn, when the shadows deepen along the edge of the forest and we believe that, if we watch carefully, at any moment we may see the unicorn.