163 Quotes by Lawrence Lessig

We are on the cusp of this time where I can say, “I speak as a citizen of the world” without others saying, God, what a nut.

I don’t support direct democracy because I want a life, and that means I want to select people who work for me who do that sort of work for me.

A world where Congressmen spend 30 to 70 percent of their time raising money from a tiny, tiny fraction of the 1% is a world where that tiny, tiny fraction has enormous power. And it’s that inequality in political power that enables this corrupted system to happen.

If you are explaining, you’re losing. It’s a bumper sticker culture. People have to get it like that, and if they don’t, if it takes three seconds to make them understand, you’re off their radar screen. Three seconds to understand, or you lose. This is our problem.

If there were two candidates, a Democrat and a Republican, who each committed to the same kind of fundamental reform, then the election would be an election between the vice presidential candidates. It’d be just like the regular election, except it would be one step down.

In a time of polarized politics there’s one thing that more than ninety percent of Americans agree on, that our government is broken, and broken because of the money in politics.

There is a culture among academics to be obscure. If you’re too clear, you can’t be saying anything interesting. The issue isn’t word length. The issue is a commitment to speaking in a way an audience can understand.

While appropriation art is critical to art, it’s an ambiguous art form in the world of the Supreme Court.

Before the monopoly should be permitted, there must be reason to believe it will do some good – for society, and not just for monopoly holders.