Quote

Our form of democracy is bribery, on the highest scale.

Gore Vidal

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Gore Vidal
Age: 86 †
Born: 1925
Born: October 3
Died: 2012
Died: July 31
Actor
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Non-Fiction Writer
Novelist
Opinion Journalist
Playwright
Politician
Prosaist
West Point
New York
Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
Gor Vidal
Cameron Kay
Eugene Luther Vidal
Edgar Box
Katherine Everard
Eugene Vidal
Politics
Form
Bribery
Scale
Scales
Highest
Democracy

More quotes by Gore Vidal

Image
Since nothing is free, to each his price.
Gore Vidal
Image
To a born-again atheist like myself, it is clear that each of us has multiple selves, talents, perceptions. But to the Roman Catholic, unity is all.
Gore Vidal
Image
As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.
Gore Vidal
Image
I'd like to see a revival of state legislatures, in which I am a true Jeffersonian.
Gore Vidal
Image
True wisdom is to know the extent of what you don't know quite as well as you know what you do know.
Gore Vidal
Image
To have an interest in both sexes is equally normal. Whether it's practiced or not is something else. Some do. Some don't.
Gore Vidal
Image
The Puritans left England for America not because they couldn't be Puritans in their mother country, but because they were not allowed to force others to become Puritans in the New World, of course, they could and did.
Gore Vidal
Image
I'm a much worse guest than I am a host, and I'm not an awfully good host either. I really like being alone.
Gore Vidal
Image
Think of the earth as a living organism that is being attacked by billions of bacteria whose numbers double every forty years. Either the host dies, or the virus dies, or both die.
Gore Vidal
Image
Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half.
Gore Vidal
Image
For true happiness, it is not enough to be successful oneself . . . one's friends must fail.
Gore Vidal
Image
We have been at war almost constantly since the last century. And it has not helped our institutions. Congress no longer represents the people. The courts do not practice justice any more. The armies never stop playing at being the policemen of the world and of oil.
Gore Vidal
Image
Americans are not only a less homogenous population than we were when we were 3 million ex-colonists, but we're less educated. On top of that, we have constant misinformation and manipulation by media.
Gore Vidal
Image
Most lives are spent putting on and taking off masks.
Gore Vidal
Image
I'm not for real revolutions, because they always bring you the opposite of what you want. You very seldom get what you want if you have a violent revolution.
Gore Vidal
Image
To speak today of a famous novelist is like speaking of a famous cabinetmaker or speedboat designer. Adjective is inappropriate to noun.
Gore Vidal
Image
I suppose that one is always tempted to challenge those who think that they and they alone possess the truth or the way or the key to the mystery.
Gore Vidal
Image
In large Victorian houses with many rooms and heavy doors, the occupants could be mysterious and exciting to one another in a way that those who live in rackety developments can never hope to be. Not even the lust of a Lord Byron could survive the fact of Levittown.
Gore Vidal
Image
The family in the West is finished... its origin was economic, not biological... the odd group of strangers that make up every family no longer have any reason to live together, to suffer from one another's jagged edges.
Gore Vidal
Image
A superficial education would be worse than none. But a full education would open every man's eyes to the nature of human existence.
Gore Vidal