It's not the voting that's democracy; it's the counting.
Interpretation
The essence of democracy lies not just in the act of voting, but in the accurate and fair counting of those votes.
This quote by Tom Stoppard highlights a crucial aspect of democratic systems: the integrity of the counting process. While casting votes is the visible act of participation in a democracy, the real measure of democracy's effectiveness is found in how those votes are counted and the fairness of that process. If the counting is flawed or biased, the entire democratic exercise loses its value.
In practice
This quote can be used when discussing the importance of election integrity at a political rally.
Love is - OK, it's 20 things, but it isn't 19. And I think that love reaches for something which is very, very deep in us and is very easily obscured, and is also very easily denied, which is the instinct towards the other person, other than toward the self.
A movie camera is like having someone you have a crush on watching you from afar - you pretend it's not there.
I once did a radio program with a famous materialist, that is to say a scientist who believed that absolutely everything was physical and that all emotions were reductive to little electrical impulses in your neurons. And I found that I didn't believe that. But what the emotions really are, I don't have an alternative theory.
One of the reasons why there are so many versions of Chekhov is that translations date in a way that the original doesn't; translations seem to be of their time.
A Chinaman of the T'ang Dynasty—and, by which definition, a philosopher—dreamed he was a butterfly, and from that moment he was never quite sure that he was not a butterfly dreaming it was a Chinese philosopher. Envy him; in his two-fold security.
Chekhov directors and Chekhov actors love working on his plays because there seems to be no end to what you can find out about the micro-narrative when you're investigating a text.
All your Western theologies, the whole mythology of them, are based on the concept of God as a senile delinquent.
Not to be born is undoubtedly the best plan of all. Unfortunately, it is within no one's reach.
A state is better governed which has few laws, and those laws strictly observed.
The effect of violent dislike between groups has always created an indifference to the welfare and honor of the state.
One of the things I miss most is that I can no longer read, due to age-related macular degeneration. I get regular injections for this, and thankfully these seem to have arrested its progress, but it's still very difficult for me to read. That means it is hard for me to pick up my Bible and read it like I used to, and I miss that very much.
This was not a fairy-tale castle and there was no such thing as a fairy-tale ending, but sometimes you could threaten to kick the handsome prince in the ham-and-eggs.
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