"No democracy has been defeated by a dictatorship from inside or from out because it has been itself too disciplined. It has been destroyed in the end by force or fraud. It is not strength but weakness which kills democracy. It has been overthrown or it has been taken over. It has not been eroded, or undermined: it is not decisiveness but dither which undermines the prestige and its will to resist. It is not inaction but inability to act that destroys the authority of democratic institutions. It is no use masking anarchy or indecisiveness under the bland names of liberalism and permissiveness."
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Members of the Parliament of the United KingdomLord Chancellors (United Kingdom)British peersGovernment ministersEducation ministers of the United Kingdom
Original Language: English
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Sources
Macleod Memorial lecture at the Young Conservatives conference in Margate (10 March 1973), quoted in 'Lord Hailsham sees frustration of government by dissident minorities as threat to democracy', The Times (12 March 1973), p. 2
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Quintin_Hogg%2C_Baron_Hailsham_of_St_Marylebone
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Quintin Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone
1950 – 1963
53 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Quintin Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone →
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