Daily Inspiration Quote by Robert A. Dahl

Dahl’s line refuses the comforting myth that democracy is a self-running machine. Calling it “a bit chancy” is doing more than understatement; it’s a deliberate demotion of democracy from destiny to probability. The word choice matters: “chancy” sounds casual, almost conversational, which smuggles in a hard truth without sermonizing. Democracy isn’t sacred insurance. It’s a wager placed in public, every day, by fallible people.

The pivot - “But its chances also depend on what we do ourselves” - shifts responsibility from abstract institutions to civic behavior. Dahl isn’t denying structures; he’s warning against outsourcing political agency to them. The subtext is a critique of spectatorship: voting as a ritual, politics as content, citizenship as a badge. “Also” is the tell. It acknowledges that history, economics, and power shape outcomes, yet insists individuals and communities still carry causal weight. That’s neither naïve optimism nor doom; it’s a demand for adult realism.

Contextually, Dahl spent his career dissecting how democracies actually function: pluralism, participation, inequality, the gap between formal rights and lived power. Read through that lens, “chancy” gestures at systemic fragility - voter suppression, concentrated wealth, institutional veto points - while “what we do” implies organizing, defending norms, tolerating opposition, and building coalitions. The line works because it’s simultaneously modest and bracing: democracy’s survival isn’t guaranteed, but it’s not random either. It’s contingent - on us.