Democracy Quotes

This points to a central tension in our very idea and practice of democracy – it is not a simple app...

If we vote to Leave and take back control, all sorts of opportunities open up. Including doing new f...

What happens if fully rational politicians compete for the support of irrational voters — specifical...

The demand for equality has two sources; one of them is among the noblest, the other is the basest, ...

A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed ...

I am a democrat [proponent of democracy] because I believe in the Fall of Man.I think most people ar...

I believe in political equality. But there are two opposite reasons for being a democrat. You may th...

It would be folly to argue that the people cannot make political mistakes. They can and do make grav...

If we can't think for ourselves, if we're unwilling to question authority, then we're just putty in ...

Every actual democracy rests on the principle that not only are equals equal but unequals will not b...

While democracy must have its organization and controls its vital breath is individual liberty.

Democracy demands trust. It demands that sense of mutual understanding. And - it's a two way street....

I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an emperor. That's not my business. I don't want to rule or conque...

If we are to give the people of China complete self-government we must first solve the problem of li...

Democracy is liberty - a liberty which does not infringe on the liberty nor encroach on the rights o...

A functioning, robust democracy requires a healthy educated, participatory followership, and an educ...

Money has replaced the vote.

1. Bangladesh.... In 1971 ... Kissinger overrode all advice in order to support the Pakistani genera...

As to the 'Left' I'll say briefly why this was the finish for me. Here is American society, attacked...

Long before it was known to me as a place where my ancestry was even remotely involved, the idea of ...

It is truth, in the old saying, that is 'the daughter of time,' and the lapse of half a century has ...

The United Nations has a critical role to play in promoting stability, security, democracy, human ri...

Democracy means government by discussion, but it is only effective if you can stop people talking.

Democracy is even more important for what it prevents than for what it provides.

The true nature of a democracy is its ability to say yes when even the powerful say no

For 60 years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this r...

It is a beautiful thing to be on fire for justice… there is no greater joy than inspiring and empowe...

And every historic effort to forge a democratic project has been undermined by two fundamental reali...

Only a visionary leadership that can motivate "the better angels of our nature," as Lincoln said, an...

Of course, the aim of a constitutional democracy is to safeguard the rights of the minority and avoi...

In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the ...

In a room wherepeople unanimously maintaina conspiracy of silence,one word of truthsounds like a pis...

But a democracy is bound in the end to be obscene, for it is composed of myriad disunited fragments,...

Democracy in America was never the same as Liberty in Europe. In Europe Liberty was a great life-thr...

I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy - but that could change.

Now the first step has to be taken, the step towards democracy. This step is full of risks, and requ...

The amount of violations of human rights in a country is always an inverse function of the amount of...

This democracy thing, or Demoxie, whatever it is, good god. Under the guise of having every voice he...

When I was ten years old, one of my friends brought a Shaleenian kangaroo-cat to school one day. I r...

If there is no way to compel those who find a majority decision distasteful to go along with it, the...

We are usually told that democracy originated in ancient Athens—like science, or philosophy, it was ...

So how do the people resist unjust authority, which, we all agree, they must and should do and have ...

The real origin of the democratic spirit - and most likely, many democratic institutions - lies prec...

What if freedom were the ability to make up our minds about what it was we wished to pursue, with wh...

The police can use violence to say, expel citizens from a public park because they are enforcing dul...

While opposing injustice nonviolently, he (Gandhi) insisted, is always morally superior to opposing ...

Democracy is interactive... It's a constant job of information, education, explanation, listening, a...

It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see...""You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?""No,...

We may still contrive to raise three cheers for democracy, although at present she only deserves two...

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of t...

...Surely the Board knows what democracy is. It is the line that forms on the right. It is the don’t...

Had he lived some centuries ago, in the brightly coloured civilizations of the past, he would have h...

We hold there is no worse enemy to a state than he who keeps the law in his own hands.

But when the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, i...

Anarchism is democracy taken seriously.

Anarchism? You bet your sweet betsy. The only cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy. Much...

Under a democratical government, the citizens exercise the powers of sovereignty; and those powers w...

The right of dissent, or, if you prefer, the right to be wrong, is surely fundamental to the existen...

Every single empire in its official discourse has said that it is not like all the others, that its ...

I was right outside the NSA [on 9/11], so I remember the tension on that day. I remember hearing on ...

Under observation, we act less free, which means we effectively are less free.

...our children must learn...to face full responsibility for their actions, to make their own choice...

I feel that the care of libraries and the use of books, and the knowledge of books, is a tremendousl...

What does it mean to call for a “democratic” solution if you don’t have a conflict-resolution mechan...

On coming to America I had the same hopes as have most European immigrants and the same disillusionm...

History is littered with the wars everybody knew could never happen.

I was thinking about honour. It's a thing that changes doesn't it? I mean, a hundred and fifty years...

Usury is the cancer of the world, which only the surgeon's knife of fascism can cut out of the life ...

In 1778, Jefferson presented to the Virginia legislature "A Bill for the More General Diffusion of K...

Democracy is susceptible to being led astray by having scapegoats paraded in front of the electorate...

Our forefathers were not only brave. I believe they were right. I believe that what they meant was t...

I have an unshaken conviction that democracy can never be undermined if we maintain our library reso...

I venture the challenging statement that if American democracy ceases to move forward as a living fo...

Presidents are selected, not elected.

From the end of the World War twenty-one years ago, this country, like many others, went through a p...

A Radical is a man with both feet firmly planted--in the air. A Conservative is a man with two perfe...

Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers...

The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to a poin...

It is the purpose of government to see that not only the legitimate interests of the few are protect...

That which now calls itself democracy differs from older forms of government solely in that it drive...

One of the strangest phenomena of our time, and one that will probably be a matter of astonishment t...

The principle of democracy is a recognition of the sovereign, inalienable rights of man as a gift fr...

The Western post-Christian civilization has picked up the Christ without His Cross. But a Christ wit...

A moral foreign policy means your positions on certain matters are clear no matter what, and that yo...

Dictators seem to learn from history much better than democrats

One of the strengths, and weaknesses, of liberal democratic societies is giving the benefit of the d...

Somehow, people always forget that it's much easier to install a dictator than to remove one

Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.

Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.

The ruling power is always faced with the question, ‘In such and such circumstances, what would you ...

It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it; consequentl...

If large numbers of people believe in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if th...

To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructe...

Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, ...

In theory at any rate each militia was a democracy and not a hierarchy . It was understood that orde...

The Republican and Democratic parties both feed out of the same bag provided by the monied system, a...

My father once told me that American democracy is a people’s democracy at heart, and that it therefo...

You can't put democracy and freedom back into a box.

In politics as in philosophy, my tenets are few and simple. The leading one of which, and indeed tha...

It shouldn't take extreme courage and a willingness to go to prison for decades or even life to blow...