Quotes and Sayings about Democracy
"The first and continuing argument for the curtailment of working hours and the raising of the minimum age was that education was necessary in a democracy and working children could not attend school."
- Grace Abbott
(Related: Age, Education, Argument, Children, Democracy, First, School)
"Democracy is not something you put away for ten years, and then in the 11th year you wake up and start practicing again. We have to begin to learn to rule ourselves again."
- Chinua Achebe
(Related: Democracy, Years)
"If a jerk burns the flag, America is not threatened, democracy is not under siege, freedom is not at risk."
- Gary Ackerman
(Related: America, Democracy, Freedom, Risk)
"The fate of every democracy, of every government based on the sovereignty of the people, depends on the choices it makes between these opposite principles, absolute power on the one hand, and on the other the restraints of legality and the authority of tradition."
- John Acton
(Related: Government, Power, People, Authority, Choices, Democracy, Fate, Principles, Tradition)
"Far from being the product of a democratic revolution and of an opposition to English institutions, the constitution of the United States was the result of a powerful reaction against democracy, and in favor of the traditions of the mother country."
- John Acton
(Related: Mother, Being, Constitution, Country, Democracy, English, Revolution, Opposition, Result, states, Traditions, United)
"The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections."
- Lord Acton
(Related: Democracy, Elections, Evil, Force, Fraud, Majority, Party, Tyranny)
"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."
- John Adams
(Related: Democracy, Suicide)
"Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide."
- John Adams
(Related: Aristocracy, Democracy, Suicide)
"The better the information it has, the better democracy works. Silence and secrecy are never good for it."
- Kate Adie
(Related: Democracy, Information, Secrecy, Silence)
"Be assured, fellow citizens, that in a democracy it is the laws that guard the person of the citizen and the constitution of the state, whereas the despot and the oligarch find their protection in suspicion and in armed guards."
- Aeschines
(Related: Constitution, Democracy, Laws, Protection, State, Suspicion)
"Taiwan is a budding democracy, and the people have participated in multi-party democratic elections since 1996."
- Todd Akin
(Related: People, Democracy, Elections)
"Remember one thing about democracy. We can have anything we want and at the same time, we always end up with exactly what we deserve."
- Edward Albee
(Related: Time, Democracy, End, Want)
"While democracy in the long run is the most stable form of government, in the short run, it is among the most fragile."
- Madeleine Albright
(Related: Government, Democracy)
"We will not be intimidated or pushed off the world stage by people who do not like what we stand for, and that is, freedom, democracy and the fight against disease, poverty and terrorism."
- Madeleine Albright
(Related: People, Democracy, Disease, Fight, Freedom, Poverty, Terrorism, Will, World)
"Is America truly a democracy? Has America ever been a democracy with the institution of slavery?"
- Tatyana Ali
(Related: America, Democracy, Slavery)
"In Iran the whole reform and democracy movement has been based on the emerging free press."
- Christiane Amanpour
(Related: Democracy, Press, Reform)
"A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption and carry desolation in their way."
- Fisher Ames
(Related: Democracy, Destruction, Will)
"The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness which the ambitious call, and the ignorant believe to be liberty."
- Fisher Ames
(Related: Democracy, Liberty)
"If information and knowledge are central to democracy, they are the conditions for development."
- Kofi Annan
(Related: Knowledge, Development, Democracy, Information)
"Education is a human right with immense power to transform. On its foundation rest the cornerstones of freedom, democracy and sustainable human development."
- Kofi Annan
(Related: Education, Power, Development, Democracy, Freedom, Rest, Right)
"Freedom of expression - in particular, freedom of the press - guarantees popular participation in the decisions and actions of government, and popular participation is the essence of our democracy."
- Corazon Aquino
(Related: Government, Actions, Decisions, Democracy, Expression, Freedom, Participation, Popular)
"I don't have any formula for ousting a dictator or building democracy. All I can suggest is to forget about yourself and just think of your people. It's always the people who make things happen."
- Corazon Aquino
(Related: People, Building, Democracy, Forget, Formula)
"It is true you cannot eat freedom and you cannot power machinery with democracy. But then neither can political prisoners turn on the light in the cells of a dictatorship."
- Corazon Aquino
(Related: Power, Democracy, Dictatorship, Freedom, Light)
"Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal."
- Aristotle
(Related: Men, Democracy, Respect)
"Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers."
- Aristotle
(Related: Men, Democracy, Property)
"If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost."
- Aristotle
(Related: Government, Equality, Thought, Democracy, Liberty, Will)
"In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme."
- Aristotle
(Related: Power, Democracy, Majority, Poor, Will)
"Jeans represent democracy in fashion."
- Giorgio Armani
(Related: Democracy, Fashion)
"Fundamentalists are not friends of democracy. And that includes your fundamentalists in the United States."
- Karen Armstrong
(Related: Democracy, Friends, states, United)
"I sow; my successor reaps. This is the majesty of democracy."
- Gloria Macapagal Arroyo
(Related: Democracy)
"A central claim of the Bush administration's foreign policy is that the spread of democracy in the Middle East is the cure for terrorism."
- Timothy Garton Ash
(Related: Policy, Cure, Democracy, Foreign policy, Terrorism)
"We've got to understand that the whole nature of the way American democracy guards its freedom has been changed."
- John Ashcroft
(Related: Nature, American, Democracy, Freedom)
"I pray that this council, which will probably be too late to save Iraq, will do what it can, which will be immeasurably strong in what it does in trying to save our democracy."
- Ed Asner
(Related: Democracy, Iraq, Trying, Will)
"After each war there is a little less democracy to save."
- Brooks Atkinson
(Related: War, Democracy)
"I believe in trade unionism, and I believe in democracy, in democratic trade unionism."
- Richard Attenborough
(Related: Democracy, Trade)
"Democracy means government by discussion, but it is only effective if you can stop people talking."
- Clement Attlee
(Related: Government, People, Democracy, Talking)
"Democracy opens new vistas and opportunities. We should use the opportunities it offers to correct past mistakes not to blunder anew."
- Ibrahim Babangida
(Related: Democracy, Mistakes, Past)
"The return of democracy in our land has indeed thrown the problems of development into bolder relief."
- Ibrahim Babangida
(Related: Development, Democracy, Land, Problems)
"The history of our country is not the history of any other country in the world which is either practicing advanced democracy or struggling to lay the foundation for democracy."
- Ibrahim Babangida
(Related: History, Country, Democracy, World)
"The challenge as we saw in the Nigerian project was to restructure the economy decisively in the direction of a modern free market as an appropriate environment for cultivation of freedom and democracy and the natural emergence of a new social order."
- Ibrahim Babangida
(Related: Challenge, Democracy, Direction, Economy, Environment, Freedom, Order, Project)
"Informed by our sad experience of history, we require nothing short of a foundation for lasting democracy."
- Ibrahim Babangida
(Related: Experience, History, Democracy, Nothing)
"To say that most of us today are purely expansive is only another way of saying that most of us continue to be more concerned with the quantity than with the quality of our democracy."
- Irving Babbitt
(Related: Quality, Democracy, Quantity, Saying, Today)
"A democracy, the realistic observer is forced to conclude, is likely to be idealistic in its feelings about itself, but imperialistic about its practice."
- Irving Babbitt
(Related: Feelings, Democracy, Practice)
"Democracy is now going forth on a crusade against imperialism."
- Irving Babbitt
(Related: Democracy, Now)
"If a man went simply by what he saw, he might be tempted to affirm that the essence of democracy is melodrama."
- Irving Babbitt
(Related: Democracy, Man)
"American democracy must be a failure because it places the supreme authority in the hands of the poorest and most ignorant part of the society."
- Thomas Babington
(Related: Society, Failure, American, Authority, Democracy)
"We learned in World War II that no single nation holds a monopoly on wisdom, morality or right to power, but that we must fight for the weak and promote democracy."
- Joe Baca
(Related: War, Power, Wisdom, Morality, Democracy, Fight, Nation, Right, World, World war)
"So long as we have enough people in this country willing to fight for their rights, we'll be called a democracy."
- Roger Nash Baldwin
(Related: People, Country, Democracy, Fight, Rights)
"Our constitutional liberties shall not be sacrificed in our search for greater security, for that is what our enemies and all enemies of freedom and democracy hope to achieve."
- Tammy Baldwin
(Related: Hope, Democracy, Enemies, Freedom, Security)
"Now the first step has to be taken, the step towards democracy. This step is full of risks, and requires trust on all sides. We don't know where it will lead. But if we just stand still, we will have no chance of escaping the violence."
- Daniel Barenboim
(Related: Trust, Chance, Democracy, First, Now, Violence, Will)
"The American flag is an enduring symbol of liberty, democracy, and justice. It is fitting that the House act to protect it as we approach our nation's birthday, and as our men and women in uniform rally behind it in Iraq's battlefields."
- Joe Barton
(Related: Men, Women, Birthday, Act, American, Democracy, Iraq, Justice, Liberty, Nation, Symbol)
"The greatest blessing of our democracy is freedom. But in the last analysis, our only freedom is the freedom to discipline ourselves."
- Bernard Baruch
(Related: Discipline, Democracy, Freedom)
"We have shown that Islam can rule the world perfectly for 14 centuries, and during this time of Muslim power we did not borrow ideas like democracy from others, so why do we need to learn democracy from them now?"
- Abu Bakar Bashir
(Related: Power, Time, Ideas, Islam, Muslim, Democracy, Now, World)
"But the West is trying to weaken Islam from outside and inside. They attack our people and invade our countries from outside, and they weaken us from within with ideas like secularism, liberalism and democracy. This is all designed to contaminate our pure Islam."
- Abu Bakar Bashir
(Related: People, Ideas, Islam, Countries, Democracy, Liberalism, Trying)
"The capacity to combine commitment with skepticism is essential to democracy."
- Mary Catherine Bateson
(Related: Commitment, Democracy, Skepticism)
"America is stronger than ever. We will forever remember those we lost on September 11, 2001. In honoring their memory, we will remain true to our commitment to freedom and democracy."
- Evan Bayh
(Related: America, Commitment, Democracy, Freedom, Memory, Will)
"Mr. Speaker, democracy works best when the American electorate is engaged and informed."
- Melissa Bean
(Related: American, Democracy)
"Nonetheless, we continue to be obsessed with finding or inventing a European nation which, as in the nation state, guarantees homogeneity and thus an appropriate form of democracy and centralized government."
- Ulrich Beck
(Related: Government, Democracy, Nation, State)
"The American people expect public servants to be able to police themselves. But instead of designing a system to enforce ethical conduct, Tom Delay and his cohorts have implemented a self protection system. Obviously, it wasn't good for democracy."
- Chris Bell
(Related: People, American, Delay, Democracy, Police, Protection, Public, Self)
"Texas has a lot of challenges, but if I choose to run I will talk about opening democracy to mainstream Texans and not just to a closed circle of entrenched ideologues."
- Chris Bell
(Related: Democracy, Talk, Will)
"The primal principle of democracy is the worth and dignity of the individual."
- Edward Bellamy
(Related: Democracy, Dignity, Worth)
"America's support for human rights and democracy is our noblest export to the world."
- William Bennett
(Related: America, Democracy, Rights, Human rights, Support, World)
"Even in a society as tightly controlled as Singapore's, the market creates certain forces which perhaps in the long run may lead to democracy."
- Peter L. Berger
(Related: Society, Democracy, May)
"Let me say again that the relationship is asymmetrical: there's no democracy without a market economy, but you can have a market economy without democracy."
- Peter L. Berger
(Related: Democracy, Economy)
"So I think one can say on empirical grounds - not because of some philosophical principle - that you can't have democracy unless you have a market economy."
- Peter L. Berger
(Related: Democracy, Economy)
"If you say simply that pressures toward democracy are created by the market, I would say yes."
- Peter L. Berger
(Related: Democracy)
"The motive power of democracy is love."
- Henri Bergson
(Related: Love, Power, Democracy, Motive)
"I was never convinced that war was the best system to bring democracy to the country."
- Silvio Berlusconi
(Related: War, Country, Democracy)
"A monoculture is not only Hollywood, but Americans trying to export democracy."
- Bernardo Bertolucci
(Related: Americans, Democracy, Hollywood, Trying)
"Ignorance is an evil weed, which dictators may cultivate among their dupes, but which no democracy can afford among its citizens."
- William Beveridge
(Related: Democracy, Dictators, Evil, Ignorance, May)
"It's true that General Musharraf opposes my return, seeing me as a symbol of democracy in the country. He is comfortable with dictatorship. I hope better sense prevails."
- Benazir Bhutto
(Related: Hope, Country, Democracy, Dictatorship, Sense, Symbol)
"Democracy is necessary to peace and to undermining the forces of terrorism."
- Benazir Bhutto
(Related: Peace, Democracy, Terrorism)
"Only that Swiss in the heart want still a king or at least a strong Upper House of Parliament. Swiss long themselves for less democracy and more dictatorship."
- Peter Bichsel
(Related: Heart, Democracy, Dictatorship, Parliament, Want)
"Slowly but surely, we are acquiring that famous culture of democracy, which is our objective."
- Paul Biya
(Related: Culture, Democracy, Famous)
"Now, mark it. This may be strong language, but heed it. The people mean it, and, my friends of the Eastern Democracy, we bid farewell when you do that thing."
- Richard Parks Bland
(Related: People, Democracy, Friends, Language, May, Now)
"Speaking as a Democrat, all my life battling for what I conceived to be Democracy, and what I conceived to be right, I am yet an American above Democracy."
- Richard Parks Bland
(Related: Life, American, Democracy, Right)
"Propaganda is to a democracy what violence is to a dictatorship."
- William Blum
(Related: Democracy, Dictatorship, Propaganda, Violence)
"At a time when 2500 American soldiers have given their lives for the cause of bringing democracy to Iraq, it is sad and frustrating to watch the Republican establishment disgrace the exercise of democracy in our own House of Representatives."
- Earl Blumenauer
(Related: Time, American, Cause, Democracy, Disgrace, Exercise, Iraq, Republican, Soldiers)
"But our energy woes are in many ways the result of classic market failures that can only be addressed through collective action, and government is the vehicle for collective action in a democracy."
- Sherwood Boehlert
(Related: Government, Action, Democracy, Energy, Result)
"The United States and Israel have a unique relationship based on our mutual commitment to democracy, freedom, and peace. Therefore, just as our commitment to these principles must be steadfast, so must our support for Israel."
- John Boehner
(Related: Peace, Commitment, Democracy, Freedom, Israel, Principles, states, Support, United)
"The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness."
- Niels Bohr
(Related: Democracy, Dictatorship, Secrecy)
"I'm much more attracted personally to governments going their full term. It's very hard to have a fixed term election I know with ah... a parliamentary democracy, but I've always had an instinct to say there should be a fixed term."
- Jim Bolger
(Related: Democracy, Instinct)
"Politicians, no matter who they are, shouldn't be able to manipulate the public on a single issue and then call an election at the height of support - that's a little bit of a manipulation of democracy."
- Jim Bolger
(Related: Democracy, Manipulation, Politicians, Public, Support)
"Violence is hidden within democratic structures because they are not radically democratic - Western democracy is merely a domestic convenience of consumerism."
- Edward Bond
(Related: Democracy, Violence)
"It's politely assumed that democracy is a means of containing and restraining violence. But violence comes not from genes but from ideas."
- Edward Bond
(Related: Ideas, Democracy, Violence)
"There is an idea of democracy produced by one-sided thinking."
- Omar Bongo
(Related: Idea, Democracy, Thinking)
"In brief, Western democracy, as other political models, is not exportable to all regions of the world."
- Omar Bongo
(Related: Democracy, World)
"But the Western countries that link their partnership with the poorest countries with respect for democracy also have to consider that they have obligations towards these countries."
- Omar Bongo
(Related: Countries, Democracy, Partnership, Respect)
"For about ten years now, the struggle for democracy and the respect of human rights has been in the focus point - if not a commodity - of political groups aiming to rise to power."
- Omar Bongo
(Related: Power, Democracy, Focus, Rights, Human rights, Now, Respect, Struggle, Years)
"Democracy is an abuse of statistics."
- Jorge Luis Borges
(Related: Abuse, Democracy, Statistics)
"In a constitutional democracy the moral content of law must be given by the morality of the framer or legislator, never by the morality of the judge."
- Robert Bork
(Related: Morality, Content, Democracy, Law)
"Being 'at the mercy of legislative majorities' is merely another way of describing the basic American plan: representative democracy."
- Robert Bork
(Related: American, Being, Democracy, Mercy)
"Democracy was being saved from Communism by getting rid of democracy."
- Juan Bosch
(Related: Being, Communism, Democracy)
"Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner."
- James Bovard
(Related: Democracy, Sheep, Voting)
"Well, one of the first things is to restore the rule of law, to place the government back under the cage of law. Another thing is to stop falling for the myth of democracy."
- James Bovard
(Related: Government, Democracy, First, Law, Myth)
"With attention deficit democracy, I am trying to wake up people to how the combination of mass ignorance, fear mongering by the government, and lying politicians is putting our entire system of government to a death spiral."
- James Bovard
(Related: Death, Government, People, Fear, Attention, Democracy, Ignorance, Lying, Politicians, Trying)
"The American people need to know the truth. The American people need to see the truth. In a democracy, letting the people know the truth is the essence of what it means to be free."
- Barbara Boxer
(Related: Truth, People, American, Democracy)
"To win the cause we all believe in, the spread of true democracy all over the world, we need to win by example, not just with speeches but by example; not just with military might but by gaining the respect of the world."
- Barbara Boxer
(Related: Cause, Democracy, Example, Military, Respect, World)
"We need to give the Iraqis a chance to build their own future. It should be in their hands. It must be in their hands. That is what democracy is all about. We can teach it, we can explain it, but they must want it enough to make it work for them."
- Barbara Boxer
(Related: Work, Chance, Democracy, Future, Want)
"You know, I wish the world well. I want Iraq to have democracy and the Haitians to have democracy. I want the people of Afghanistan to thrive. Lord knows, we spend enough money there to help them. What about people at home? Isn't that our first responsibility?"
- Barbara Boxer
(Related: Money, People, Home, Afghanistan, Democracy, First, Help, Iraq, Responsibility, Want, World)
"Our democracy is the centerpiece of who we are as a nation. And it is the fondest hope of all Americans that we can help bring democracy to every corner of the world."
- Barbara Boxer
(Related: Hope, Americans, Democracy, Help, Nation, World)
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."
- Louis D. Brandeis
(Related: Wealth, Country, Democracy)
"So I think that if we want to have a Congress, if we want to have government that looks like America, if we want to have government that is truly a representative Democracy, then we need to clearly address how we get our campaign laws out of the way of Democracy."
- Carol Moseley Braun
(Related: Government, America, Congress, Democracy, Laws, Want)
"I think the Iraqi people have shown extraordinary patience and courage in the last few months. They have really put a political system on the way to success, to a real democracy here."
- Paul Bremer
(Related: Success, People, Courage, Democracy, Months, Patience)
"There will always be a place for us somewhere, somehow, as long as we see to it that working people fight for everything they have, everything they hope to get, for dignity, equality, democracy, to oppose war and to bring to the world a better life."
- Harry Bridges
(Related: Life, War, Equality, People, Hope, Democracy, Dignity, Fight, Will, World)
"Only a knowledgeable, empowered and vocal citizenry can perform well in democracy."
- David Brin
(Related: Democracy)
"It's all a sham: I have seen, and I know firsthand, indeed from my own pen, how the organized Right has sabotaged not only journalism but also democracy and truth."
- David Brock
(Related: Truth, Democracy, Journalism, Pen, Right)
"America is not just a democracy, it represents a certain culture of competitive mobility and personality aspirations, politics is not merely a clash of interests, but a clash of dreams."
- David Brooks
(Related: Dreams, Politics, America, Aspirations, Culture, Democracy, Personality)
"Television is the most perfect democracy. You sit there with your remote control and vote."
- Aaron Brown
(Related: Control, Democracy, Television, Vote)
"We must take proactive steps to promote democracy and human rights abroad."
- Sam Brownback
(Related: Democracy, Rights, Human rights)
"The E.U. is more than just a trade organization or a common market; it is a guarantee of democracy, freedom, justice, and human rights. Nations cannot stay in the E.U. if they do not respect these guarantees."
- John Bruton
(Related: Democracy, Freedom, Rights, Human rights, Justice, Nations, Respect, Trade)
"War on terrorism defines the central preoccupation of the United States in the world today, and it does reflect in my view a rather narrow and extremist vision of foreign policy of the world's first superpower, of a great democracy, with genuinely idealistic traditions."
- Zbigniew Brzezinski
(Related: War, Policy, Vision, Democracy, First, Foreign policy, states, Terrorism, Today, Traditions, United, World)
"I like the noise of democracy."
- James Buchanan
(Related: Democracy)
"The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting."
- Charles Bukowski
(Related: Time, Democracy, Dictatorship, Difference, First, Vote, Voting, Waste)
"Democracy is not about making speeches. It is about making committees work."
- Alan Bullock
(Related: Work, Democracy)
"In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority."
- Edmund Burke
(Related: Democracy, Majority, Minority)
"I have made a film about jazz that tries to look through jazz to see what it tells us about who we are as a people. I think that jazz is a spectacularly accurate model of democracy and a kind of look into our redemptive future possibilities."
- Ken Burns
(Related: People, Democracy, Film, Future, Jazz, Possibilities)
"You can't put democracy and freedom back into a box."
- George W. Bush
(Related: Democracy, Freedom)
"The reality is that we are hated not because of our democracy, freedoms, and generous social security system; rather, we are hated because of our involvement in foreign conflicts and quarrels that were never our concern."
- Amir Butler
(Related: Concern, Democracy, Quarrels, Reality, Security)
"Democracy is being allowed to vote for the candidate you dislike least."
- Robert Byrne
(Related: Being, Democracy, Vote)
"The Greens have every right to run, that's what democracy is, and they should argue their point by saying how they think people should vote, not by telling us to be silent."
- Peter Camejo
(Related: People, Democracy, Right, Saying, Vote)
"The United States is not for democracy in Iraq, it's for setting up a puppet government."
- Peter Camejo
(Related: Government, Democracy, Iraq, states, United)
"I think we need to just be very clear about what we're trying to do in Afghanistan. Frankly, we're not trying to create the perfect democracy. We're never going to create some ideal society. We are simply there for our own national security."
- David Cameron
(Related: Society, Afghanistan, Democracy, National security, Trying)
"Dr. King's leadership reaffirmed the promise of our democracy: that everyday people, working together, have the power to change our government and our institutions for the better."
- Maria Cantwell
(Related: Change, Government, Leadership, Power, People, Promise)
"In our system of democracy, our government works on a system of checks and balances. Instead of stripping power from the courts, I believe we should follow the process prescribed in our Constitution - consideration of a Constitutional amendment."
- Dennis Cardoza
(Related: Government, Power, Consideration, Constitution, Democracy)
"But at the same time, I think we recognize we can't impose democracy from without, particularly American-style democracy. We need to work with those elements in the region that are moving towards a reformed process and there are a number of them."
- Frank Carlucci
(Related: Work, Time, American, Democracy)
"I never wanted to do biography just to tell the life of a famous man. I always wanted to use the life of a man to examine political power, because democracy shapes our lives."
- Robert Caro
(Related: Life, Power, Biography, Democracy, Famous, Man)
"Robert Moses wasn't elected to anything. We're taught that in a democracy power comes from being elected. He had more power than anyone, and he held it for 48 years."
- Robert Caro
(Related: Power, Being, Democracy, Years)
"I don't know whether it's age or maturity, but I certainly find myself committed more and more to the looser forms of Western democracy at any price."
- John Le Carre
(Related: Age, Democracy, Maturity)
"Democracy means that anyone can grow up to be president, and anyone who doesn't grow up can be vice president."
- Johnny Carson
(Related: Democracy, President, Vice)
"The experience of democracy is like the experience of life itself-always changing, infinite in its variety, sometimes turbulent and all the more valuable for having been tested by adversity."
- Jimmy Carter
(Related: Experience, Life, Adversity, Democracy, Infinite, Variety)
"Abortion on demand, throughout the full nine months of a pregnancy, for virtually any reason, became public policy in the United States of America. No other developed democracy had, or has, such a permissive abortion regime."
- Robert Casey
(Related: Policy, Abortion, America, Democracy, Months, Pregnancy, Public, Public policy, Reason, states, United)
"Israelis can be proud of the vibrant democracy that they have created, and I know that many Rhode Islanders share my deep appreciation for the close friendship between our two nations."
- Lincoln Chafee
(Related: Friendship, Appreciation, Deep, Democracy, Nations)
"And we are grateful to the American young men and women who are risking their lives to give the Iraqi people this chance, this dream of democracy in Iraq now."
- Ahmed Chalabi
(Related: Men, Women, People, Dream, American, Chance, Democracy, Iraq, Now)
"The view that we hold in Iraq now is this - that democracy is associated with elections. I believe that elections are possible."
- Ahmed Chalabi
(Related: Democracy, Elections, Iraq, Now)
"Democracy, as has been said of Christianity, has never really been tried."
- Stuart Chase
(Related: Christianity, Democracy)
"Either we are all free, or we fail; democracy must belong to all of us."
- Dennis Chavez
(Related: Democracy)
"We're not perfect, but we do have democracy."
- Hugo Chavez
(Related: Democracy)
"Television is democracy at its ugliest."
- Paddy Chayefsky
(Related: Democracy, Television)
"Advertising is the very essence of democracy."
- Anton Chekhov
(Related: Advertising, Democracy)
"We urge all democratic nations and the United Nations to answer the Iraqi Governing Council's call for support for the people of Iraq in making the transition to democracy."
- Dick Cheney
(Related: People, Democracy, Iraq, Nations, Support, United)
"You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution."
- Gilbert K. Chesterton
(Related: Democracy, Revolution, Order)
"Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated."
- Gilbert K. Chesterton
(Related: Government, Aristocracy, Democracy)
"Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around."
- Gilbert K. Chesterton
(Related: Democracy, Giving, Tradition, Walking)
"Iraq can emerge as a beacon of hope and democracy in the Middle East, and the world, with our help."
- Chris Chocola
(Related: Hope, Democracy, Help, Iraq, World)
"In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than just ideals to be valued - they may be essential to survival."
- Noam Chomsky
(Related: Survival, Democracy, Existence, Freedom, Ideals, May)
"Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state."
- Noam Chomsky
(Related: Democracy, Propaganda, State)
"The stakes are very high for us in Haiti. We have many important interests there. Perhaps the most important to me is our interest in the promotion of democracy in this hemisphere."
- Warren Christopher
(Related: Democracy, Interest, Promotion)
"Those who abhors democracy would rarely immigrate to an authoritarian state if they have to."
- Joe Chung
(Related: Democracy, State)
"Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization."
- Winston Churchill
(Related: Civilization, Democracy, Nothing, Prison)
"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."
- Winston Churchill
(Related: Government, Democracy)
"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."
- Winston Churchill
(Related: Argument, Conversation, Democracy)
"A marvel that has nothing to offer, democracy is at once a nation's paradise and its tomb."
- Emile M. Cioran
(Related: Democracy, Paradise, Nation, Nothing)
"I think we're at risk with our democracy. I think we're dealing with the most closed, imperialistic, nastiest administration in living memory. They even put Richard Nixon to shame."
- Wesley Clark
(Related: Democracy, Living, Memory, Nixon, Risk, Shame)
"The ship of democracy, which has weathered all storms, may sink through the mutiny of those on board."
- Grover Cleveland
(Related: Democracy, May, Storms)
"American and Israel share a special bond. Our relationship is unique among all nations. Like America, Israel is a strong democracy, a symbol of freedom, and an oasis of liberty, a home to the oppressed and persecuted."
- William J. Clinton
(Related: Home, America, American, Democracy, Freedom, Israel, Liberty, Nations, Symbol)
"No matter how many troops we have in place or how long they stay, we cannot impose a parliamentary democracy there any more than the insurgents can impose a theocracy."
- Nick Clooney
(Related: Democracy, Troops)
"The closer Iraq approaches freedom and democracy, the more impediments and barriers the terrorists will erect."
- Howard Coble
(Related: Democracy, Freedom, Iraq, Will)
"Words like feminism or democracy scare me. They are words with barnacles on them, and you can't see what's underneath."
- William Collins
(Related: Democracy, Feminism, Words)
"Congress is functioning the way the Founding Fathers intended-not very well. They understood that if you move too quickly, our democracy will be less responsible to the majority."
- Barber B. Conable, Jr.
(Related: Congress, Democracy, Fathers, Founding, Majority, Will)
"Without the power of the Industrial Union behind it, Democracy can only enter the State as the victim enters the gullet of the Serpent."
- James Connolly
(Related: Power, Democracy, State)
"Democracy consists of choosing your dictators, after they've told you what you think it is you want to hear."
- Alan Coren
(Related: Democracy, Dictators, Want)
"As Taiwan's friend and ally, I believe it is important for the United States to monitor the situation in the Taiwan Strait very carefully to help ensure Taiwan is not forced into a position which would endanger its freedom or its democracy."
- Jim Costa
(Related: Friend, Democracy, Freedom, Help, states, United)
"Christianity, democracy, science, education, wealth, and the cumulative inheritance of a thousand years, have not preserved us from the vain repetition of history."
- Ralph A. Cram
(Related: History, Education, Science, Wealth, Christianity, Democracy, Inheritance, Repetition, Years)
"The years between 1800 and 1825 were distinguished, so far as our domestic development was concerned, by the growth of the Western pioneer Democracy in power and self-consciousness."
- Herbert Croly
(Related: Power, Development, Growth, Democracy, Self, Years)
"When Jefferson and the Republicans rallied to the Union and to the existing Federalist organization, the fabric of traditional American democracy was almost completely woven."
- Herbert Croly
(Related: American, Democracy, Republicans)
"Democracy may mean something more than a theoretically absolute popular government, but it assuredly cannot mean anything less."
- Herbert Croly
(Related: Government, Democracy, May, Popular)
"In Jefferson's mind democracy was tantamount to extreme individualism."
- Herbert Croly
(Related: Democracy, Extreme, Individualism, Mind)
"Our country was thereby saved from the consequences of its distracting individualistic conception of democracy, and its merely legal conception of nationality. It was because the followers of Jackson and Douglas did fight for it, that the Union was preserved."
- Herbert Croly
(Related: Legal, Consequences, Country, Democracy, Fight, Followers, Nationality)
"I think it is absolutely essential in a democracy to have competition in the media, a lot of competition, and we seem to be moving away from that."
- Walter Cronkite
(Related: Competition, Democracy, Media)
"As you know from reading many of these Negro writers, we don't deal too much with the discussion of democracy and what it means and how improvisation fits in all that."
- Stanley Crouch
(Related: Democracy, Reading, Writers)
"Sir, I am a republican; and I desire to see this House observe the principles of that democracy which is ever on the lips of its members, and which, I hope, is in their hearts, as I know and feel it is in mine, and mean it shall be in my conduct."
- Caleb Cushing
(Related: Hope, Democracy, Desire, Principles, Republican)
"Democracy, it appears, is a bit chancy. But its chances also depend on what we do ourselves."
- Robert A. Dahl
(Related: Democracy)
"There is so much that can be done, you see, the assembly is about improving our democracy."
- Ron Davies
(Related: Democracy)
"I have - I have more than an interesting task in piloting Wales into our new democracy, without wanting to exercise draconian powers on behalf of anybody else - I can assure of that."
- Ron Davies
(Related: Democracy, Exercise)
"When Bush says democracy, I often wonder what he's referring to."
- Angela Davis
(Related: Democracy, Wonder)
"I am more convinced than ever that a lively two party system is essential to our democracy."
- Stockwell Day
(Related: Democracy, Party)
"It's a democracy and if I am outvoted, I have to accept the majority decisions."
- Moshe Dayan
(Related: Decisions, Democracy, Majority)
"The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians."
- Benjamin Disraeli
(Related: Democracy, Politicians, World)
"I have said democracy and freedom do not work too well if you are hungry, if you are starving."
- Pete Domenici
(Related: Work, Democracy, Freedom)
"Democracy is stronger than terrorism, and we will not cower to the terrorists' campaign of fear."
- John Doolittle
(Related: Fear, Democracy, Terrorism, Will)
"America's Veterans have served their country with the belief that democracy and freedom are ideals to be upheld around the world."
- John Doolittle
(Related: Belief, America, Country, Democracy, Freedom, Ideals, Veterans, World)
"The U.S. Constitution is the basic framework for the greatest democracy on Earth. Some of my colleagues find it easy to amend it. I don't."
- Byron Dorgan
(Related: Constitution, Democracy, Earth)
"Celebrity distorts democracy by giving the rich, beautiful, and famous more authority than they deserve."
- Maureen Dowd
(Related: Authority, Celebrity, Democracy, Famous, Giving)
"Democracy, like any non-coercive relationship, rests on a shared understanding of limits."
- Elizabeth Drew
(Related: Democracy, Limits, Understanding)
"Democracy don't rule the world, You'd better get that in your head; This world is ruled by violence, But I guess that's better left unsaid."
- Bob Dylan
(Related: Democracy, Violence, World)
"Democracy doesn't recognize east or west; democracy is simply people's will. Therefore, I do not acknowledge that there are various models of democracy; there is just democracy itself."
- Shirin Ebadi
(Related: People, Democracy, Will)
"Without democracy there is no freedom. Violence, no matter who is using it, is always reactionary."
- Friedrich Ebert
(Related: Democracy, Freedom, Violence)
"Although we dealt decisively with all terrorist organizations, we at the same time not only maintained, preserved our democracy, but kept improving it."
- Bulent Ecevit
(Related: Time, Democracy)
"And it is essential that in fighting terrorism, sacrifices should not be made on democracy."
- Bulent Ecevit
(Related: Democracy, Fighting, Terrorism)
"Bosses are no more inevitable in state and local governments than dictators are in national governments. They will arise and prosper, nevertheless, if true believers of democracy - citizens devoted to the democratic ideals - do not constantly oppose them."
- Charles Edison
(Related: Bosses, Democracy, Dictators, Ideals, State, Will)
"Our democracy poses problems and these problems must and shall be solved by courageous leadership."
- Charles Edison
(Related: Leadership, Democracy, Problems)
"The act of voting by ordinary Iraqis in the face of extreme danger confirms President Bush's belief that people around the globe, when given a chance, will choose liberty and democracy over enslavement and tyranny."
- John Ensign
(Related: People, Belief, Act, Chance, Danger, Democracy, Extreme, Liberty, President, Tyranny, Voting, Will)
"Therefore, the question is not whether such democratization is possible, but instead how to meet the yearning of the masses in the Middle East for democracy; in other words, how to achieve democratization in the Middle East."
- Recep Tayyip Erdogan
(Related: Democracy, Question, Words, Yearning)
"The advanced levels which the democratic world has attained at the end of lengthy processes may have created the perception in the region that democracy is a distant concept; this perception can be addressed."
- Recep Tayyip Erdogan
(Related: Perception, Democracy, End, May, World)
"Similarly, it is argued that the culture of Islam is incompatible with democracy. Basically, this conventional perspective of the Middle East thus contends that democracy in that region is neither possible nor even desirable."
- Recep Tayyip Erdogan
(Related: Islam, Culture, Democracy, Perspective)
"The US and the European Union needs to help in the translation of the demand for democracy into a political will."
- Recep Tayyip Erdogan
(Related: Democracy, Help, Needs, Will)
"What should be targeted is a concept of organic, and not just mechanic, democracy that preserves the rule of law, separation of powers, and that is participatory and pluralistic."
- Recep Tayyip Erdogan
(Related: Democracy, Law, Separation)
"According to this view, democracy is a product of western culture, and it cannot be applied to the Middle East which has a different cultural, religious, sociological and historical background."
- Recep Tayyip Erdogan
(Related: Culture, Democracy, Religious)
"But foremost, I do not subscribe to the view that Islamic culture and democracy cannot be reconciled."
- Recep Tayyip Erdogan
(Related: Culture, Democracy)
"However, democracy cannot be defined as the existence of parliaments and elections alone."
- Recep Tayyip Erdogan
(Related: Democracy, Elections, Existence)
"In other words, the bar should be maintained at the level of a pluralistic and participatory democracy."
- Recep Tayyip Erdogan
(Related: Democracy, Words)
"I take the debate on the method of promoting democracy seriously."
- Recep Tayyip Erdogan
(Related: Debate, Democracy)
"Democracy derailed is democracy denied."
- Chaka Fattah
(Related: Democracy)
"A basic tenet of a healthy democracy is open dialogue and transparency."
- Peter Fenn
(Related: Democracy, Open)
"Democracy no longer works for the poor if politicians treat them as a separate race."
- Frank Field
(Related: Democracy, Politicians, Poor, Race)
"We in universities are not in the democracy business. What we do, when we're doing it, is teach and learn."
- Stanley Fish
(Related: Business, Democracy)
"The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeois."
- Gustave Flaubert
(Related: Dream, Democracy, Stupidity)
"There is something inherent in our democracy that tends to want to level. America is a little uncomfortable in the presence of someone who is distinctly superior in whatever way."
- Carlisle Floyd
(Related: America, Democracy, Want)
"Few businessmen are capable of being in politics, they don't understand the democratic process, they have neither the tolerance or the depth it takes. Democracy isn't a business."
- Malcolm Forbes
(Related: Business, Politics, Being, Democracy, Tolerance)
"I tell you, in my opinion, the cornerstone of democracy is free press - that's the cornerstone."
- Milos Forman
(Related: Democracy, Opinion, Press)
"Two cheers for Democracy; one because it admits variety, and two because it permits criticism."
- E. M. Forster
(Related: Criticism, Democracy, Variety)
"So, two cheers for Democracy: one because it admits variety and two because it permits criticism."
- E. M. Forster
(Related: Criticism, Variety)
"Democracy is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people."
- Harry Emerson Fosdick
(Related: People, Conviction, Democracy, Possibilities)
"Ukraine is also successfully moving toward democracy and making progress expanding freedoms and rights to its people. We can help Ukraine achieve these goals and improve its economy by normalizing trade relations."
- Vito Fossella
(Related: People, Progress, Goals, Democracy, Economy, Rights, Help, Trade)
"Republicans are pushing legislation forward that will improve the effectiveness of and bring more accountability to U.S. foreign assistance around the world and bring democracy even further into the light."
- Virginia Foxx
(Related: Democracy, Legislation, Light, Republicans, Will, World)
"Our brave soldiers and support personnel are engaged in a battle as important as any the United States has ever before waged, for the success of democracy in Iraq is a crucial test of the ideals this Nation was founded upon."
- Virginia Foxx
(Related: Success, Battle, Democracy, Ideals, Iraq, Nation, Soldiers, states, Support, United)
"The American flag is the most recognized symbol of freedom and democracy in the world."
- Virginia Foxx
(Related: American, Democracy, Freedom, Symbol, World)
"The Western world, the free world, loses what it cherishes most, and that is freedom and liberty we've seen for a couple of hundred years in this grand experiment that we call democracy."
- Tommy Franks
(Related: Democracy, Freedom, Liberty, World, Years)
"What we are doing in fact is recovering and progressing and sustaining the recovery of our democracy."
- Alberto Fujimori
(Related: Democracy, Fact)
"When public men indulge themselves in abuse, when they deny others a fair trial, when they resort to innuendo and insinuation, to libel, scandal, and suspicion, then our democratic society is outraged, and democracy is baffled."
- J. William Fulbright
(Related: Men, Society, Abuse, Democracy, Public, Scandal, Suspicion)
"In a democracy, dissent is an act of faith."
- J. William Fulbright
(Related: Faith, Act, Democracy, Dissent)
"In a democracy dissent is an act of faith. Like medicine, the test of its value is not in its taste, but in its effects."
- James W. Fulbright
(Related: Faith, Act, Democracy, Dissent, Medicine, Taste, Value)
"In Europe, it appears that in the name of democracy, elites are pursuing an autocratic, centralized power, seeking economic control and social regimentation."
- Maggie Gallagher
(Related: Power, Control, Democracy, Europe, Name)
"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?"
- Mohandas Gandhi
(Related: Democracy, Destruction, Difference, Liberty, Name)
"The spirit of democracy is not a mechanical thing to be adjusted by abolition of forms. It requires change of heart."
- Mohandas Gandhi
(Related: Change, Heart, Democracy, Spirit)
"Everything has to be done to build some sort of international democracy. We've seen only the tiniest beginnings of that."
- Susan George
(Related: Beginnings, Democracy)
"How do we get democracy at the international level? That's our problem. and it's essentially the same problem people faced in the 18th Century when they tried to get democracy nationally. Now we need it internationally."
- Susan George
(Related: People, Democracy, Now)
"What we have is two important values in conflict: freedom of speech and our desire for healthy campaigns in a healthy democracy. You can't have both."
- Dick Gephardt
(Related: Values, Democracy, Desire, Freedom, Speech)
"On Jan. 30, millions of Iraqis will cast ballots in the country's first fair and free election in decades, marking continued progress in Iraq's transition toward a country built on the pillars of democracy and freedom for all."
- Jim Gerlach
(Related: Progress, Country, Democracy, First, Freedom, Iraq, Will)
"The beliefs expressed in the Declaration of Independence remain a standard for our nation today. They also remain a standard for those nations across the globe striving to achieve democracy."
- Paul Gillmor
(Related: Beliefs, Democracy, Independence, Nation, Nations, Today)
"To find ways of practicing democracy, not ways of orating about it, is our great problem."
- Mary Barnett Gilson
(Related: Democracy)
"Democracy! Bah! When I hear that I reach for my feather boa!"
- Allen Ginsberg
"Running a school where the students all succeed, even if some students have to help others to make the grade, is good preparation for democracy."
- William Glasser
(Related: Democracy, Help, Preparation, Running, School, Students, Succeed)
"This country has always been run by elite, and it's an elitist democracy. And that's not a radical concept. It's elitist democracy. When people talk about democracy, they don't talk - really talk about participatory democracy, until the point that we get us at Election Day."
- Danny Glover
(Related: People, Country, Day, Democracy, Radical, Talk)
"The problem with the United Nations is that while democracy within nations is the best available form of government, democracy among nations can be a moral disaster - especially if some nations are not democracies."
- Jonah Goldberg
(Related: Government, Democracy, Disaster, Nations, United)
"We need to thank all of our troops, and particularly those for whom we can never express enough gratitude for they have given their lives so that all of us may be free and that our democracy can be a shining light for the rest of the world."
- Virgil Goode
(Related: Gratitude, Democracy, Light, May, Rest, Troops, World)
"The media is absolutely essential to the functioning of a democracy. It's not our job to cozy up to power. We're supposed to be the check and balance on government."
- Amy Goodman
(Related: Government, Power, Balance, Democracy, Job, Media)
"More socialism means more democracy, openness and collectivism in everyday life."
- Mikhail Gorbachev
(Related: Life, Democracy, Socialism)
"The soviet people want full-blooded and unconditional democracy."
- Mikhail Gorbachev
(Related: People, Democracy, Want)
"Democracy is the wholesome and pure air without which a socialist public organization cannot live a full-blooded life."
- Mikhail Gorbachev
(Related: Life, Democracy, Public)
"Democracy must learn to defend itself."
- Mikhail Gorbachev
(Related: Democracy)
"America must be the teacher of democracy, not the advertiser of the consumer society. It is unrealistic for the rest of the world to reach the American living standard."
- Mikhail Gorbachev
(Related: Society, America, American, Democracy, Living, Rest, World)
"Our democracy, our constitutional framework is really a kind of software for harnessing the creativity and political imagination for all of our people. The American democratic system was an early political version of Napster."
- Al Gore
(Related: Imagination, People, Creativity, American, Democracy, Software)
"I believe democracy flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets and when the press can decide whether to print what it knows."
- Katherine Graham
(Related: Government, Democracy, Press, Secrets)
"There are some things the general public does not need to know and shouldn't. I believe democracy flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets, and when the press can decide whether to print what it knows."
- Katherine Graham
(Related: Government, Democracy, Press, Public, Secrets)
"As long as we're in a democracy, I have to give what I think the majority of people will enjoy."
- Norman Granz
(Related: People, Democracy, Majority, Will)
"I don't run democracy. I train troops to defend democracy and I happen to be their surrogate father and mother as well as their commanding general."
- Alfred M. Gray
(Related: Mother, Father, Democracy, Troops)
"Just the concept of personal freedom within a democracy, for instance, is a relatively young idea - only about 300 years old in this country."
- Daniel Greenberg
(Related: Idea, Country, Democracy, Freedom, Old, Years)
"And they understand that to be an effective member of a democracy, you have to accept responsibility."
- Daniel Greenberg
(Related: Democracy, Responsibility)
"In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock!"
- Graham Greene
(Related: Love, Peace, Democracy, Years)
"Everybody's for democracy in principle. It's only in practice that the thing gives rise to stiff objections."
- Meg Greenfield
(Related: Democracy, Practice)
"I do think that we are facing a crisis in our democracy. As true patriots, each and every one of us has to speak up, speak out, and change those in charge. Our democracy depends upon it."
- Robert Greenwald
(Related: Change, Crisis, Democracy)
"Recent action in Syria and Palestine also tell us that the awakening voices of democracy in those regions are occurring, and that those in that region are able to pursue it without being stifled by terrorists that are despotic."
- Judd Gregg
(Related: Action, Being, Democracy, Palestine)
"Nevertheless, I resist cynicism and continue to believe in the possibilities for genuine democracy."
- William Greider
(Related: Cynicism, Democracy, Possibilities)
"Americans cannot teach democracy to the world until they restore their own."
- William Greider
(Related: Americans, Democracy, World)
"As the world's finest democracy, we do not do guillotines. But there are other less bloody rituals of humiliation, designed to reassure the populace that order is restored, the Republic cleansed."
- William Greider
(Related: Democracy, Order, Rituals, World)
"The United Nations has a critical role to play in promoting stability, security, democracy, human rights, and economic development. The UN is as relevant today as at any time in its history, but it needs reform."
- Chuck Hagel
(Related: Time, History, Development, Democracy, Rights, Human rights, Nations, Needs, Play, Reform, Security, Stability, Today, United)
"Our alliances should be understood as a means to expand our influence, not as a constraint on our power. The expansion of democracy and freedom in the world should be a shared interest and value with all nations."
- Chuck Hagel
(Related: Power, Democracy, Freedom, Influence, Interest, Nations, Value, World)
"I regard freedom of expression as the primary right without which one can not have a proper functioning democracy."
- Lord Hailsham
(Related: Democracy, Expression, Freedom, Right)
"Our democracy is not a product but a continual process. It is preserved not by monuments but deeds. Sometimes it needs refining; sometimes it needs amending; sometimes it needs defending. Always, it needs improving."
- Lee H. Hamilton
(Related: Deeds, Democracy, Monuments, Needs)
"Democracy fascinates me."
- Lee H. Hamilton
(Related: Democracy)
"Democracy makes us articulate our views, defend them, and refine them."
- Lee H. Hamilton
(Related: Democracy)
"But despite this breathtaking pace, I believe in the capacity of our democracy to meet these challenges."
- Lee H. Hamilton
(Related: Democracy)
"We should insist that governments receiving American aid live up to standards of accountability and transparency, and we should support countries that embrace market reforms, democracy, and the rule of law."
- Lee H. Hamilton
(Related: American, Countries, Democracy, Law, Support)
"If we are to keep democracy, there must be a commandment: Thou shalt not ration justice."
- Learned Hand
(Related: Democracy, Justice)
"Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be."
- Sydney J. Harris
(Related: Democracy)
"Trade creates jobs and lifts people out of poverty. And when that happens, societies stabilize and grow. And there is nothing like a stable society to fight terrorism and strengthen democracy, freedom and rule of law."
- Dennis Hastert
(Related: Society, People, Democracy, Fight, Freedom, Jobs, Law, Nothing, Poverty, Terrorism, Trade)
"137 years later, Memorial Day remains one of America's most cherished patriotic observances. The spirit of this day has not changed - it remains a day to honor those who died defending our freedom and democracy."
- Doc Hastings
(Related: America, Day, Democracy, Freedom, Honor, Spirit, Years)
"In remembering those who lost their lives in the London attacks and the September 11th attacks we continue our commitment to fighting for freedom, democracy and justice."
- Doc Hastings
(Related: Commitment, Democracy, Fighting, Freedom, Justice, London)
"I am confident that in the end freedom and democracy will prevail over terror and tyranny. We will win this war on terror - and when we do Americans, the British, Iraqis, and people around the world will be more secure."
- Doc Hastings
(Related: War, People, Americans, Democracy, End, Freedom, Terror, Tyranny, Will, World)
"A sailing ship is no democracy; you don't caucus a crew as to where you'll go anymore than you inquire when they'd like to shorten sail."
- Sterling Hayden
(Related: Democracy)
"What our men and women in uniform are doing is providing for the Iraqi people and other surrounding nations the opportunity to see, to taste and to experience the democracy that equals freedom and ultimately justice."
- Robin Hayes
(Related: Experience, Men, Women, People, Opportunity, Democracy, Freedom, Justice, Nations, Taste)
"Liberal democracy must finally become the vital element of our society."
- Gustav Heinemann
(Related: Society, Democracy, Liberal)
"Not less, but more democracy - that is the demand, that is the great goal that we have to prescribe for ourselves, and especially for our youth."
- Gustav Heinemann
(Related: Goal, Democracy, Youth)
"Reading builds the educated and informed electorate so vital to our democracy."
- Brad Henry
(Related: Democracy, Reading)
"It is a paradox that far too few Americans participate in the wonderful ritual of democracy that we call Election Day."
- Brad Henry
(Related: Americans, Day, Democracy, Paradox, Ritual)
"Democracy is not something that happens, you know, just at election time, and it's not something that happens just with one event. It's an ongoing building process. But it also ought to be a part of our culture, a part of our lives."
- Jim Hightower
(Related: Time, Building, Culture, Democracy)
"So now is the time, more than ever, for those who truly value all the principles of democracy, especially including dissent, to be the most forceful in speaking up, standing up and speaking out."
- Jim Hightower
(Related: Time, Democracy, Dissent, Now, Principles, Value)
"You measure a democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists."
- Abbie Hoffman
(Related: Democracy, Freedom, Measure)
"We live in a democracy. We have this extraordinary opportunity to use our mind and say what we think, speak as we think. Sometimes what we say is objectionable to other people. But that is part of a free society."
- Hal Holbrook
(Related: Society, People, Opportunity, Democracy, Mind)
"Many of the contradictions in Postmodern art come from the fact that we're trying to be artists in a democratic society. This is because in a democracy, the ideal is compromise. In art, it isn't."
- Brad Holland
(Related: Art, Society, Artists, Compromise, Democracy, Fact, Trying)
"Democracy for us tends to be has to do with who shouts the loudest!"
- Peter Hook
(Related: Democracy)
"Therefore, until the day I die, I am going to do what I can, regardless of the cost to me, to try to stop this awful corruption that is destroying our beloved democracy."
- John Jay Hooker
(Related: Corruption, Day, Democracy)
"A short exposure to the convention convinced me that the Internet may save the Democracy in that it is a way for the people, for the citizens, to have some direct influence on the government."
- John Jay Hooker
(Related: Government, People, Democracy, Influence, Internet, May)
"Democracy is the common pursuit of mankind, and all countries must earnestly protect the democratic rights of the people."
- Jinato Hu
(Related: People, Countries, Democracy, Rights, Mankind, Pursuit)
"America is a country ready to be taken, in fact, longing to be taken by political leaders ready to restore democracy and trust to the political process."
- Arianna Huffington
(Related: Trust, America, Country, Democracy, Fact, Leaders, Longing, Political leaders)
"While democracy must have its organization and controls, its vital breath is individual liberty."
- Charles Evans Hughes
(Related: Democracy, Liberty)
"I swear to the Lord, I still can't see, why Democracy means, everybody but me."
- Langston Hughes
(Related: Democracy)
"It is not enough to merely defend democracy. To defend it may be to lose it; to extend it is to strengthen it. Democracy is not property; it is an idea."
- Hubert H. Humphrey
(Related: Idea, Democracy, May, Property)
"I think clearly the United States, as well as other western nations, should stand by their commitments to human rights and democracy and should try to influence other countries to move in that direction."
- Samuel P. Huntington
(Related: Countries, Democracy, Direction, Rights, Human rights, Influence, Nations, states, United)
"I may be wrong in that, but not I think in putting the questions. In our modern democracy the government needs not a unanimous but a general support for war before it orders our forces to fight."
- Douglas Hurd
(Related: Government, War, Democracy, Fight, May, Needs, Questions, Support, Wrong)
"We believe democracy to be the only real guarantor of stability and we have sought to create a 'Jordanian model' that might also inspire others in our region. I wish democracy and peace to be my legacy to my people and the shield of generations to come."
- King Hussein I
(Related: Peace, People, Democracy, Generations, Stability)
"The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment."
- Robert M. Hutchins
(Related: Death, Apathy, Assassination, Democracy, Indifference, Will)
"A democracy which makes or even effectively prepares for modern, scientific war must necessarily cease to be democratic. No country can be really well prepared for modern war unless it is governed by a tyrant, at the head of a highly trained and perfectly obedient bureaucracy."
- Aldous Huxley
(Related: War, Bureaucracy, Country, Democracy)
"You would like me to say that the veil will be ripped from the voters' eyes sometime between now and November, thereby restoring the proper version of Democracy to the House and Senate. I won't say that, of course. The simple reason is, I don't know."
- Gwen Ifill
(Related: Democracy, Eyes, Now, Reason, Senate, Will)
"In the democracy of the dead all men at last are equal. There is neither rank nor station nor prerogative in the republic of the grave."
- John James Ingalls
(Related: Men, Democracy, Grave, Rank)
"Democracy is only an experiment in government, and it has the obvious disadvantage of merely counting votes instead of weighing them."
- Dean Inge
(Related: Government, Democracy, Obvious)
"We must never forget that many around the globe are denied the basic rights we enjoy as Americans. If we are to continue enjoying these privileges and freedoms we must accept our mission of expanding democracy around the globe."
- James Inhofe
(Related: Americans, Democracy, Forget, Rights, Mission)
"The need to help spread democracy and the ability to do that will be much greater if we break this addiction to oil, which gives the oil princes and sultans the power in the Mideast."
- Jay Inslee
(Related: Power, Ability, Addiction, Democracy, Help, Oil, Will)
"My submission to you is we're fighting the war on terror not overseas but in our own streets, and we'd be spending vast more fortunes to try to be a defensive country to protect ourselves rather than an offensive country to spread democracy wherever people yearn for it."
- Johnny Isakson
(Related: War, People, Country, Democracy, Fighting, Terror)
"The birth of democracy in Iraq is one of the great positive changes of our era."
- Ernest Istook
(Related: Positive, Democracy, Iraq)
"Liberty, freedom and democracy are very fuzzy words, but human rights is very specific."
- Joichi Ito
(Related: Democracy, Freedom, Rights, Human rights, Liberty, Words)
"We discussed the history of postwar Japan and how Japan had missed an opportunity to build a more functional democracy because of the focus on fighting communism driven in large part by the American occupation."
- Joichi Ito
(Related: History, Opportunity, American, Communism, Democracy, Fighting, Focus, Occupation)
"The US constitution's First Amendment rights only cover Americans, but I believe that in a democracy the competition of ideas and free speech should combat beliefs that it does not agree with - more speech and debate, not censorship."
- Joichi Ito
(Related: Ideas, Americans, Beliefs, Censorship, Competition, Constitution, Debate, Democracy, First, Free speech, Rights)
"Now that our media companies and it appears are policies are traded for cash, what is there to check the continuing consolidation of power and diminishing of democracy?"
- Joichi Ito
(Related: Power, Democracy, Media, Now)
"I noticed that democracy was broken and tried to work on fixing that in Japan. Then I realized that it was broken all over the place and decided to work on that too."
- Joichi Ito
(Related: Work, Democracy)
"The thing about democracy, beloveds, is that it is not neat, orderly, or quiet. It requires a certain relish for confusion."
- Molly Ivins
(Related: Confusion, Democracy, Quiet)
"Democracy shows not only its power in reforming governments, but in regenerating a race of men and this is the greatest blessing of free governments."
- Andrew Jackson
(Related: Men, Power, Democracy, Race)
"Deliberation and debate is the way you stir the soul of our democracy."
- Jesse Jackson
(Related: Soul, Debate, Democracy)
"People in so many countries look up to the United States as a model of democracy, but I doubt if that can continue. It leaves me with a great sense of loss."
- Bianca Jagger
(Related: People, Countries, Democracy, Doubt, Loss, Sense, states, United)
"The Paris Commune was first and foremost a democracy. The government was a body elected by universal suffrage."
- C. L. R. James
(Related: Government, Body, Democracy, First, Paris)
"You have to stand guard over the development and maintenance of Islamic democracy, Islamic social justice and the equality of manhood in your own native soil."
- Muhammad Ali Jinnah
(Related: Equality, Development, Democracy, Justice)
"A constitutional democracy is in serious trouble if its citizenry does not have a certain degree of education and civic virtue."
- Phillip E. Johnson
(Related: Education, Virtue, Democracy, Trouble)
"So in Asia I want to make - I want to succeed to make a model of what success, practicing democracy, and market economy. Then that will give a good influence over Asian countries."
- Kim Dae Jung
(Related: Success, Countries, Democracy, Economy, Influence, Succeed, Want, Will)
"The deadliest foe of democracy is not autocracy but liberty frenzied."
- Otto Hermann Kahn
(Related: Democracy, Liberty)
"I think Russian people are learning that democracy is not an alien thing; it's not a western invention."
- Garry Kasparov
(Related: People, Democracy, Invention, Learning)
"I think Russians today have a distorted picture of capitalism, liberal democracy and market economy."
- Garry Kasparov
(Related: Capitalism, Democracy, Economy, Liberal, Today)
"I think that it's a vital moment now for Russian democracy to convince people that it's only our actions, our joined actions and protests that could force Kremlin to reconsider its plans to abolish presidential elections."
- Garry Kasparov
(Related: People, Actions, Democracy, Elections, Force, Now)
"The Communists automatically violated the daily practices of democracy to which I was accustomed."
- Elia Kazan
(Related: Democracy)
"Democracy without morality is impossible."
- Jack Kemp
(Related: Morality, Democracy)
"Integrity is the lifeblood of democracy. Deceit is a poison in its veins."
- Edward Kennedy
(Related: Deceit, Democracy, Integrity, Poison)
"Israel was not created in order to disappear - Israel will endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and the home of the brave. It can neither be broken by adversity nor demoralized by success. It carries the shield of democracy and it honors the sword of freedom."
- John F. Kennedy
(Related: Home, Success, Hope, Adversity, Democracy, Freedom, Israel, Order, Will)
"The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all."
- John F. Kennedy
(Related: Democracy, Ignorance, Security)
"While we enjoy the benefits of living in the greatest democracy in the world, we must be ever conscious of the fact that none of the achievements or freedoms enjoyed in America would be possible without the price that has been paid for by our servicemen and women."
- Mark Kennedy
(Related: Women, America, Benefits, Democracy, Fact, Living, World)
"One is actually the democracy here, you know, people are, people assume that this election means that there is democracy in Pakistan. There is no democracy."
- Imran Khan
(Related: People, Democracy)
"There can only be democracy when money is not allowed to be spent in Politics."
- Imran Khan
(Related: Money, Politics, Democracy)
"Judicial review has been a part of our democracy in this constitutional government for over 200 years."
- Ron Kind
(Related: Government, Democracy, Years)
"Our Founding Fathers crafted a constitutional Republic for the first time in the history of the world because they were shaping a form of government that would not have the failures of a democracy in it, but had the representation of democracy in it."
- Steve King
(Related: Government, History, Time, Democracy, Fathers, First, Founding, World)
"Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognized as its most conspicuous and sacred responsibility, all talks of the sovereignty of Parliament and of democracy is idle and futile."
- William Lyon Mackenzie King
(Related: Government, Control, Credit, Democracy, Parliament, Responsibility)
"From a monarchy followed by suffering under Communism, Ethiopians must be given the opportunity to flourish under the greatest of systems - democracy."
- Jack Kingston
(Related: Opportunity, Communism, Democracy, Suffering)
"In Ethiopia, democracy is in its infancy and it must be nurtured along by its leaders."
- Jack Kingston
(Related: Democracy, Leaders)
"Democracy not only requires equality but also an unshakable conviction in the value of each person, who is then equal."
- Jeane Kirkpatrick
(Related: Equality, Conviction, Democracy, Value)
"I always assume that democracy is the only good form of government, quite frankly, and democracy is always to be preferred."
- Jeane Kirkpatrick
(Related: Government, Democracy)
"In liberal democracy and anxious anarchy, the traditional classic dance, compact of aristocratic authority and absolute freedom in a necessity of order, has never been so promising as an independent expression as it is today."
- Lincoln Kirstein
(Related: Dance, Anarchy, Authority, Democracy, Expression, Freedom, Liberal, Necessity, Order, Today)
"The EU will face problems similar to the US: an increasing gap between the citizens and decision makers in Brussels and a perceived or even real lack of democracy."
- David Korten
(Related: Decision, Democracy, Problems, Will)
"Capitalism and the market are presented as synonymous, but they are not. Capitalism is both the enemy of the market and democracy."
- David Korten
(Related: Capitalism, Democracy, Enemy)
"Democracy divides people into workers and loafers. It makes no provision for those who have no time to work."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Time, Work, People, Democracy, Workers)
"Democracy means the opportunity to be everyone's slave."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Opportunity, Democracy)
"Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions - it only guarantees equality of opportunity."
- Irving Kristol
(Related: Equality, Opportunity, Democracy)
"If the war has faded into history, democracy's defeat in Vietnam has left deep marks in the consciousness of both nations."
- Nguyen Cao Ky
(Related: War, History, Consciousness, Deep, Defeat, Democracy, Nations, Vietnam)
"The struggle for democracy and human rights in Burma is a struggle for life and dignity. It is a struggle that encompasses our political, social and economic aspirations."
- Aung San Suu Kyi
(Related: Life, Aspirations, Democracy, Dignity, Rights, Human rights, Struggle)
"The democracy process provides for political and social change without violence."
- Aung San Suu Kyi
(Related: Change, Democracy, Violence)
"We Chileans have to be able to understand that in a democracy institutions must function freely and with sovereignty."
- Ricardo Lagos
(Related: Democracy)
"Democracy, good governance and modernity cannot be imported or imposed from outside a country."
- Emile Lahud
(Related: Country, Democracy, Modernity)
"To make democracy work, we must be a notion of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain."
- Louis L'Amour
(Related: Work, Democracy, Right, Vote)
"Free nations of the world cannot allow Taiwan, a beacon of democracy, to be subdued by an authoritarian China."
- Nick Lampson
(Related: Democracy, Nations, World)
"Moreover, as we live in an era of the ascendancy of democracy and human rights, we must see that Taiwan has been a vibrant democracy with a democratically elected president and legislature."
- Nick Lampson
(Related: Democracy, Rights, Human rights, President)
"Democracy still has a real hope and chance in Iraq, and true freedom in this country would be the greatest testament to those who gave their lives for it."
- Mary Landrieu
(Related: Hope, Chance, Country, Democracy, Freedom, Iraq)
"The Chinese leadership hoped that the world would soon forget the Tiananmen Square massacre. Our job in Congress is to ensure that we never forget those who lost their lives in Tiananmen Square that day or the pro-democracy cause for which they fought."
- Tom Lantos
(Related: Leadership, Cause, Congress, Day, Forget, Job, World)
"The more I see of democracy the more I dislike it. It just brings everything down to the mere vulgar level of wages and prices, electric light and water closets, and nothing else."
- David Herbert Lawrence
(Related: Democracy, Light, Nothing, Wages, Water)
"In order to build basic democracy here we'll need lives of two generations - at least forty years."
- Aleksandr Lebed
(Related: Democracy, Generations, Order, Years)
"As I understand I took most so-called democratic states about 200 years on average to build their democracies. That is why, when we go to sleep under totalitarian rule and wake up in a democracy, it makes me laugh."
- Aleksandr Lebed
(Related: Democracy, Sleep, states, Years)
"In the Soviet Union, capitalism triumphed over communism. In this country, capitalism triumphed over democracy."
- Fran Lebowitz
(Related: Capitalism, Communism, Country, Democracy)
"On a Chinese film you just give orders, no one questions you. Here, you have to convince people, you have to tell them why you want to do it a certain way, and they argue with you. Democracy."
- Ang Lee
(Related: People, Democracy, Film, Questions, Want)
"The last two elections were stolen. They were stolen and so we will not rest until we reclaim our democracy and this is what today is all about."
- Barbara Lee
(Related: Democracy, Elections, Rest, Today, Will)
"Democracy is fatal for the arts; it leads only to chaos or the achievement of new and lower common denominators of quality."
- Walter Legge
(Related: Quality, Achievement, Chaos, Democracy)
"If we don't have an informed electorate we don't have a democracy. So I don't care how people get the information, as long as they get it. I'm just doing it my particular way and I feel lucky I can do it the way I want to do it."
- Jim Lehrer
(Related: People, Care, Democracy, Information, Want)
"Democracy is indispensable to socialism."
- Vladimir Lenin
(Related: Democracy, Socialism)
"If we have a chance of succeeding and bringing stability and democracy to Iraq, it will mean learning from our mistakes, not denying them and not ignoring them."
- Carl Levin
(Related: Chance, Democracy, Iraq, Learning, Mistakes, Stability, Will)
"Democracy may have arisen in the West as the way of striving for the universal aspiration to dignity and freedom, but it isn't alien to the underlying concepts that infuse religion and moral philosophy everywhere."
- Flora Lewis
(Related: Religion, Democracy, Dignity, Freedom, May, Philosophy)
"I also know that there have been many times in our history when the proximity of an election has induced exactly the kind of leadership and consensus-building that produce progress in our democracy."
- Joe Lieberman
(Related: History, Leadership, Progress, Democracy)
"Class struggle: external peace, international solidarity, peace among peoples. This is the sacred slogan of international socialist democracy that liberates nations."
- Karl Liebknecht
(Related: Peace, Class, Democracy, Nations, Solidarity)
"Passive fatalism can never be the role of a revolutionary party, like the Social Democracy."
- Karl Liebknecht
(Related: Democracy, Party)
"I take a grave view of the press. It is the weak slat under the bed of democracy."
- A. J. Liebling
(Related: Bed, Democracy, Grave, Press)
"As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy."
- Abraham Lincoln
(Related: Idea, Democracy)
"Voters must have faith in the electoral process for our democracy to succeed."
- Blanche Lincoln
(Related: Faith, Democracy, Succeed)
"Global markets must be balanced by global values such as respect for human rights and international law, democracy, security and sustainable economic and environmental development."
- Anna Lindh
(Related: Environmental, Development, Values, Democracy, Rights, Human rights, Law, Respect, Security)
"Speak up! We live in a democracy. We all need to make sure our voices are heard and our opinions are known."
- Bill Lipinski
(Related: Democracy, Opinions)
"No amount of charters, direct primaries, or short ballots will make a democracy out of an illiterate people."
- Walter Lippmann
(Related: People, Democracy, Will)
"Maintain democracy or go to dictatorship: that is what is at stake in these elections."
- Mario Vargas Llosa
(Related: Democracy, Elections)
"If our republican form of government is perishing because communications - the infrastructure of that republic - is under the yoke of international business how, at last, do we save it? We must build a confrontational movement to reclaim our democracy, a movement committed to active and sustained protest against the present order."
- Mark Lloyd
(Related: Business, Government, Democracy, Order, Present, Protest, Republican)
"If we expose the Chinese to our freedoms, it may create a greater hunger for democracy, reform and liberties in China."
- Gary Locke
(Related: Democracy, Hunger, May, Reform)
"Democracy is the form of government that gives every man the right to be his own oppressor."
- James Russell Lowell
(Related: Government, Democracy, Man, Right)
"Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor."
- James Russell Lowell
(Related: Democracy, Man, Right)
"I have always been of the mind that in a democracy manners are the only effective weapons against the bowie-knife."
- James Russell Lowell
(Related: Democracy, Manners, Mind, Weapons)
"And in a democracy, when we say we're mad at what's going on, what we need to be saying is we're mad at ourselves."
- Mike Lowry
(Related: Democracy, Saying)
"I am convinced that the majority of American people do understand that we have a moral responsibility to foster the concepts of opportunity, free enterprise, the rule of law, and democracy. They understand that these values are the hope of the world."
- Richard Lugar
(Related: People, Opportunity, Hope, Values, American, Democracy, Law, Majority, Responsibility, World)
"Despite elections and the experience of post-Soviet personal freedoms by the Russian people, the fate of democracy in Russia is perhaps more ambiguous now than at any time since the collapse of the Communist system."
- Richard Lugar
(Related: Experience, Time, People, Democracy, Elections, Fate, Now, Post, Russia)
"Social democracy seeks and finds the ways, and particular slogans, of the workers' struggle only in the course of the development of this struggle, and gains directions for the way forward through this struggle alone."
- Rosa Luxemburg
(Related: Development, Democracy, Struggle, Workers)
"Social democracy... is only the advance guard of the proletariat, a small piece of the total working masses; blood from their blood, and flesh from their flesh."
- Rosa Luxemburg
(Related: Blood, Democracy)
"The more that social democracy develops, grows, and becomes stronger, the more the enlightened masses of workers will take their own destinies, the leadership of their movement, and the determination of its direction into their own hands."
- Rosa Luxemburg
(Related: Leadership, Determination, Democracy, Direction, Will, Workers)
"Amnesty International continues to report that extra judicial tortures and murders continue. This is not democracy that we are exporting to Mexico, and this is certainly not what the Mexican workers signed up for."
- Stephen F. Lynch
(Related: Democracy, Workers)
"You do not export democracy through the Defense Department or the Defense Secretary. You do it through trade agreements, through the Department of Commerce and favorable agreements with our friends and neighbors across the globe."
- Stephen F. Lynch
(Related: Commerce, Defense, Democracy, Friends, Neighbors, Trade)
"In a few decades, the relationship between the environment, resources and conflict may seem almost as obvious as the connection we see today between human rights, democracy and peace."
- Wangari Maathai
(Related: Peace, Conflict, Connection, Democracy, Environment, Rights, Human rights, May, Obvious, Today)
"Democracy is never a thing done. Democracy is always something that a nation must be doing. What is necessary now is one thing and one thing only that democracy become again democracy in action, not democracy accomplished and piled up in goods and gold."
- Archibald MacLeish
(Related: Action, Democracy, Gold, Nation, Now)
"A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person."
- James Madison
(Related: Government, Society, Democracy)
"In Egypt today most people are concerned with getting bread to eat. Only some of the educated understand how democracy works."
- Naguib Mahfouz
(Related: People, Democracy, Today)
"As the tension eases, we must look in the direction of agriculture, industry and education as our final goals, and toward democracy under Mr Mubarak."
- Naguib Mahfouz
(Related: Education, Goals, Agriculture, Democracy, Direction, Tension)
"A modern democracy is a tyranny whose borders are undefined; one discovers how far one can go only by traveling in a straight line until one is stopped."
- Norman Mailer
(Related: Democracy, Traveling, Tyranny)
"Communism destroys democracy. Democracy can also destroy Communism."
- Andre Malraux
(Related: Communism, Democracy)
"Socialist democracy is not, a luxury and its need is not limited to the most advanced industrial countries."
- Ernest Mandel
(Related: Countries, Democracy, Luxury)
"It is a strange fact that freedom and equality, the two basic ideas of democracy, are to some extent contradictory. Logically considered, freedom and equality are mutually exclusive, just as society and the individual are mutually exclusive."
- Thomas Mann
(Related: Equality, Society, Ideas, Democracy, Fact, Freedom)
"Democracy is timelessly human, and timelessness always implies a certain amount of potential youthfulness."
- Thomas Mann
(Related: Democracy, Potential)
"I have absolutely no idea what my generation did to enrich our democracy. We dropped the ball. We entered a period of complacency and closed our eyes to the public corruption of our democracy."
- Wynton Marsalis
(Related: Idea, Corruption, Democracy, Eyes, Public)
"It's important to address young people in the reopening of New Orleans. In rebuilding, let's revisit the potential of American democracy and American glory."
- Wynton Marsalis
(Related: People, American, Democracy, Glory, Potential)
"We always hear about the rights of democracy, but the major responsibility of it is participation."
- Wynton Marsalis
(Related: Democracy, Rights, Participation, Responsibility)
"Democracy is the road to socialism."
- Karl Marx
(Related: Democracy, Road, Socialism)
"You can't be a full participant in our democracy if you don't know our history."
- David McCullough
(Related: History, Democracy)
"We have, essentially, a worthless democracy."
- Aaron McGruder
(Related: Democracy)
"This election marks a significant moment in Haiti; it not only serves as the basis of hope along the road to democracy, but also serves as a testament to the resolve and character of the Haitian people during their long struggle for peace, reconciliation, and prosperity."
- Kendrick Meek
(Related: Peace, People, Character, Hope, Democracy, Prosperity, Road, Struggle)
"Democracy is the art of thinking independently together."
- Alexander Meiklejohn
(Related: Art, Democracy, Thinking)
"There is no dignity in wickedness, whether in purple or rags; and hell is a democracy of devils, where all are equals."
- Herman Melville
(Related: Democracy, Dignity, Hell, Wickedness)
"Adultery is the application of democracy to love."
- H. L. Mencken
(Related: Love, Adultery, Democracy)
"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance."
- H. L. Mencken
(Related: Wisdom, Belief, Democracy, Ignorance)
"Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses."
- H. L. Mencken
(Related: Democracy, Worship)
"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."
- H. L. Mencken
(Related: People, Democracy, Theory, Want)
"Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage."
- H. L. Mencken
(Related: Art, Science, Democracy, Running)
"Democracy is only a dream: it should be put in the same category as Arcadia, Santa Claus, and Heaven."
- H. L. Mencken
(Related: Democracy, Heaven, Santa claus)
"I confess I enjoy democracy immensely. It is incomparably idiotic, and hence incomparably amusing."
- H. L. Mencken
(Related: Democracy)
"We should seek international support for our mutual objectives abroad, in promoting freedom, democracy, respect for human rights, and also the elimination of weapons of mass destruction."
- Robert Menendez
(Related: Democracy, Destruction, Freedom, Rights, Human rights, Objectives, Respect, Support, Weapons)
"Here's to democracy. May we get the government we deserve."
- Rick Mercer
(Related: Government, Democracy, May)
"The American system of democracy is founded on the concept that every citizen has the right to vote, to know that their vote is counted, and that the vote is counted accurately."
- Barbara Mikulski
(Related: American, Democracy, Right, Vote)
"Don't ever dare to take your college as a matter of course - because, like democracy and freedom, many people you'll never know have broken their hearts to get it for you."
- Alice Duer Miller
(Related: People, College, Democracy, Freedom)
"We need religion as a guide. We need it because we are imperfect. Our government needs the church, because only those humble enough to admit they are sinners can bring to democracy the tolerance it requires in order to survive."
- Jeff Miller
(Related: Government, Religion, Church, Democracy, Needs, Order, Tolerance)
"Democracy is hypocrisy without limitation."
- Iskander Mirza
(Related: Democracy, Hypocrisy)
"We have a war dictator who was not elected, he snuck in. so he punishes people that threaten him in any way, or even say something he doesn't like. It has no resemblance to democracy."
- Joni Mitchell
(Related: War, People, Democracy)
"The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy."
- Charles de Montesquieu
(Related: Apathy, Democracy, Public, Tyranny, Welfare)
"Democracy in China is like Viagra; no such thing as free elections."
- George Montgomery
(Related: Democracy, Elections)
"Our constancy, same might call it our madness, was necessary to wear down the oppressive forces of the old democracy which, in Spain, was a hundred years behind the times."
- Frederica Montseny
(Related: Constancy, Democracy, Madness, Old, Spain, Years)
"America's corporate and political elites now form a regime of their own and they're privatizing democracy. All the benefits - the tax cuts, policies and rewards flow in one direction: up."
- Bill Moyers
(Related: America, Benefits, Corporate, Democracy, Tax, Now, Tax cuts)
"Democracy belongs to those who exercise it."
- Bill Moyers
(Related: Democracy, Exercise)
"Democracy may not prove in the long run to be as efficient as other forms of government, but it has one saving grace: it allows us to know and say that it isn't."
- Bill Moyers
(Related: Government, Democracy, May)
"The true victory is the victory for democracy and pluralism."
- Hosni Mubarak
(Related: Victory, Democracy)
"Democracy is beautiful in theory; in practice it is a fallacy."
- Benito Mussolini
(Related: Democracy, Practice, Theory)
"There can be no daily democracy without daily citizenship."
- Ralph Nader
(Related: Citizenship, Democracy)
"Once you don't vote your ideals... that has serious undermining affects. It erodes the moral basis of our democracy."
- Ralph Nader
(Related: Democracy, Ideals, Vote)
"Those religions that are oppressive to women are also against democracy, human rights, and freedom of expression."
- Taslima Nasrin
(Related: Women, Democracy, Expression, Freedom, Rights, Human rights)
"Well my briefing was that Honduras was a small and vulnerable country just back on the path towards democracy it was about to have just before I arrived, the first elections for a civilian president in more than 9 years."
- John Negroponte
(Related: Country, Democracy, Elections, First, President, Years)
"Democracy and socialism are means to an end, not the end itself."
- Jawaharlal Nehru
(Related: Democracy, End, Socialism)
"Democracy is good. I say this because other systems are worse."
- Jawaharlal Nehru
(Related: Democracy)
"Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary."
- Reinhold Niebuhr
(Related: Democracy, Injustice, Man)
"Democracy is finding proximate solutions to insoluble problems."
- Reinhold Niebuhr
(Related: Democracy, Problems)
"Our political institutions work remarkably well. They are designed to clang against each other. The noise is democracy at work."
- Michael Novak
(Related: Work, Democracy)
"Christianity is the root of all democracy, the highest fact in the rights of men."
- Novalis
(Related: Men, Christianity, Democracy, Fact, Rights)
"Unfortunately, the true force which propels our endless political disputes, our constant struggles for political advantage, is often not our burning concern for democracy, it is often of our dedication to the principle of the rule of law."
- Olusegun Obasanjo
(Related: Concern, Dedication, Democracy, Force, Law)
"The equality that we are all entitled to, as citizens of this democracy, can't be avoided by some religious dogma of a President who's is supposed to believe in the notion of separation of church and state. And he frankly doesn't."
- Rosie O'Donnell
(Related: Equality, Church, Democracy, President, Religious, Separation, State)
"We are losing the democracy that we're trying to sell in the Mideast and everywhere else right here in our own nation."
- Rosie O'Donnell
(Related: Democracy, Losing, Nation, Right, Trying)
"Inflation is bringing us true democracy. For the first time in history, luxuries and necessities are selling at the same price."
- Robert Orben
(Related: Time, History, Selling, Democracy, First, Inflation)
"Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy, the whores are us."
- P. J. O'Rourke
(Related: Government, Democracy, Parliament, Trouble)
"It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it; consequently, the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning."
- George Orwell
(Related: Fear, Country, Democracy, Meaning, Word)
"And that is my definition of democracy, the right to be in a minority and not be suppressed."
- Lee Harvey Oswald
(Related: Democracy, Minority, Right)
"It will take years to bring Iraq the democracy it deserves."
- Bill Owens
(Related: Democracy, Iraq, Will, Years)
"My thinking tends to be libertarian. That is, I oppose intrusions of the state into the private realm - as in abortion, sodomy, prostitution, pornography, drug use, or suicide, all of which I would strongly defend as matters of free choice in a representative democracy."
- Camille Paglia
(Related: Abortion, Choice, Democracy, Pornography, Prostitution, State, Suicide, Thinking)
"Despite what the pundits want us to think, contested primaries aren't civil war, they are democracy at work, and that's beautiful."
- Sarah Palin
(Related: War, Work, Democracy, Want)
"For us democracy is a question of human dignity. And human dignity is political freedom."
- Olof Palme
(Related: Democracy, Dignity, Freedom, Question)
"The rights of democracy are not reserved for a select group within society, they are the rights of all the people."
- Olof Palme
(Related: Society, People, Democracy, Rights)
"And one of the frustrating parts, but it's an inherent part of our democracy, is we have separation of powers."
- George Pataki
(Related: Democracy, Separation)
"In democracy everyone has the right to be represented, even the jerks."
- Chris Patten
(Related: Democracy, Right)
"In a democracy everybody has a right to be represented, including the jerks."
- Chris Patten
(Related: Democracy, Right)
"We women of America tell you that America is not a democracy. Twenty million women are denied the right to vote."
- Alice Paul
(Related: Women, America, Democracy, Right, Vote)
"Our country's founders cherished liberty, not democracy."
- Ron Paul
(Related: Country, Democracy, Liberty)
"Let's win the peace and democracy the good people of Iraq so richly deserve after decades of tyranny."
- Mike Pence
(Related: Peace, People, Democracy, Iraq, Tyranny)
"One has the right to be wrong in a democracy."
- Claude Pepper
(Related: Democracy, Right, Wrong)
"Television has made dictatorship impossible but democracy unbearable."
- Shimon Peres
(Related: Democracy, Dictatorship, Television)
"Democracy functions best when we have an active citizenry."
- Rick Perry
(Related: Democracy)
"Democracy is a process by which people are free to choose the man who will get the blame."
- Laurence J. Peter
(Related: People, Blame, Democracy, Man, Will)
"A healthy democracy requires a decent society; it requires that we are honorable, generous, tolerant and respectful."
- Charles W. Pickering
(Related: Society, Democracy)
"Sometimes democracy must be bathed in blood."
- Augusto Pinochet
(Related: Blood, Democracy)
"Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy."
- Plato
(Related: Democracy, Tyranny)
"Democracy passes into despotism."
- Plato
(Related: Democracy)
"Democracy... is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder; and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike."
- Plato
(Related: Equality, Government, Democracy, Disorder, Variety)
"Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty."
- Plato
(Related: Democracy, Dictatorship, Extreme, Liberty, Slavery, Tyranny)
"In nation after nation, democracy has taken the place of autocracy."
- John Charles Polanyi
(Related: Democracy, Nation)
"And when they do spin out of control there are important ramifications that affect America, not just its direct national interest but its broader interests as a nation which has thought of itself as a beacon to other nations, of freedom, liberty, democracy, whatever."
- John Pomfret
(Related: Thought, Control, America, Democracy, Freedom, Interest, Liberty, Nation, Nations)
"Democracy: An institution in which the whole is equal to the scum of the parts."
- Keith Preston
"Britain, which in the years immediately before this war was rapidly losing such democratic virtues as it possessed, is now being bombed and burned into democracy."
- J. B. Priestley
(Related: War, Being, Democracy, Losing, Now, Years)
"Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is a time to honor the greatest champion of racial equality who taught a nation - through compassion and courage - about democracy, nonviolence and racial justice."
- Mark Pryor
(Related: Equality, Time, Courage, Compassion, Day, Democracy, Honor, Justice, Martin, Nation, Nonviolence)
"Nobody and nothing will stop Russia on the road to strengthening democracy and ensuring human rights and freedoms."
- Vladimir Putin
(Related: Democracy, Rights, Human rights, Nothing, Road, Russia, Will)
"I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy - but that could change."
- Dan Quayle
(Related: Change, Democracy, Freedom)
"El Salvador is a democracy so it's not surprising that there are many voices to be heard here. Yet in my conversations with Salvadorans... I have heard a single voice."
- Dan Quayle
(Related: Democracy, Voice)
"The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was indeed a vital instrument of democracy, ensuring the integrity and reliability of a democratic process that we as a Country hold so dear."
- Charles Rangel
(Related: Act, Country, Democracy, Rights, Integrity, Voting)
"Small use it will be to save democracy for the race if we cannot save the race for democracy."
- Jeanette Rankin
(Related: Democracy, Race, Will)
"Despite what many Americans think, most Soviets do not yearn for capitalism or Western-style democracy."
- Dan Rather
(Related: Americans, Capitalism, Democracy)
"Standards of conduct appropriate to civil society or the workings of a democracy cannot be purely and simply applied to the Church."
- Joseph Ratzinger
(Related: Society, Church, Democracy)
"Without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure."
- Ronald Reagan
(Related: God, Democracy, Will)
"Democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man."
- Ronald Reagan
(Related: Government, Democracy, Dying, Man, Worth)
"We need to remind our core supporters that we have not forgotten their concern with the way our democracy is being replaced by European bureaucracy in so many areas."
- John Redwood
(Related: Being, Bureaucracy, Concern, Democracy)
"Democracy is too good to share with just anybody."
- Nigel Rees
(Related: Democracy)
"Liberals are concerned about the concentration of wealth because it almost inevitably leads to a concentration of power that undermines democracy."
- Robert Reich
(Related: Power, Wealth, Democracy, Liberals)
"Democracy forever teases us with the contrast between its ideals and its realities, between its heroic possibilities and its sorry achievements."
- Agnes Repplier
(Related: Contrast, Democracy, Ideals, Possibilities)
"Now, al Qaeda's on the run. Afghanistan is no longer a base of operations. The Afghan government is a friendly government that is trying to bring democracy to its people."
- Condoleezza Rice
(Related: Government, People, Afghanistan, Democracy, Now, Trying)
"The President, in talking about freedom and democracy, is sparking a wave of very positive democratic sentiment that might help us override both Islamic fundamentalism that has formed in that region, and also some of the hatred for our policies of invading Iraq."
- Bill Richardson
(Related: Positive, Democracy, Freedom, Hatred, Help, Iraq, President, Sentiment, Talking)
"There's an assault on human sexuality, as Judge Scalia said, they've taken sides in the culture war and on top of that if we have a democracy, the democratic processes should be that we can elect representatives who will share our point of view and vote those things into law."
- Pat Robertson
(Related: War, Culture, Democracy, Law, Sexuality, Vote, Will)
"But if there's an erosion at home, you know, Thomas Jefferson warned about a tyranny of an oligarchy and if we surrender our democracy to the tyranny of an oligarchy, we've made a terrible mistake."
- Pat Robertson
(Related: Home, Mistake, Democracy, Surrender, Tyranny)
"Terror is only justice: prompt, severe and inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue; it is less a distinct principle than a natural consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing wants of the country."
- Maximilien Robespierre
(Related: Virtue, Country, Democracy, Terror)
"We Americans have the great gifts of freedom and democracy, but it has been our education system that has fulfilled the promise of democracy."
- James E. Rogers
(Related: Education, Americans, Democracy, Freedom, Gifts, Promise)
"On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does."
- Will Rogers
(Related: Government, People, Being, Democracy, Nation, World, Years)
"Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
(Related: Government, Power, Country, Democracy, Forget, President, Senators)
"Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
(Related: Education, Choice, Democracy, Succeed)
"Democracy is the process by which people choose the man who'll get the blame."
- Bertrand Russell
(Related: People, Blame, Democracy, Man)
"To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the utmost importance to the citizens of a democracy."
- Bertrand Russell
(Related: Democracy, Eloquence, Importance)
"Democracy can only spring from practising it early, and democratic action was not to expected from young people brought up under a close authoritarian system."
- Dora Russell
(Related: People, Action, Democracy, Spring)
"The issue is whether the ultimate civil authority of the United States can tolerate actions in contempt of constitutional lines of authority. Any lessening of civil power over military power must inevitably lead away from democracy."
- Harold Russell
(Related: Power, Actions, Authority, Contempt, Democracy, Military, states, United)
"Protection of private property is a fundamental right protected in a strong democracy."
- Jim Ryun
(Related: Democracy, Property, Protection, Right)
"We're going to have to forgive a great deal of the Soviet era debt. There's no question about that. Let's face up to that. We're going to have to put in money if Russia is really going to consolidate a democracy."
- Jeffrey Sachs
(Related: Money, Debt, Democracy, Question, Russia)
"The US has not imposed democracy in Yemen, its people have."
- Ali A. Saleh
(Related: People, Democracy)
"Democracy in Yemen did not stop, instead it is in a continuous development, there is no other way to follow rather than democracy, it is our national way for building up our country, it was not imposed on us by others."
- Ali A. Saleh
(Related: Development, Building, Country, Democracy)
"In order every one in our homeland learns principles of democracy and the peaceful transition of power, and in order to stabilize and develop multiple choices in democratic practice."
- Ali A. Saleh
(Related: Power, Choices, Democracy, Order, Practice, Principles)
"Democracy is the only system capable of reflecting the humanist premise of equilibrium or balance. The key to its secret is the involvement of the citizen."
- John Ralston Saul
(Related: Balance, Democracy, Key)
"If allowed to run free of the social system, capitalism will attempt to corrupt and undermine democracy, which is after all not a natural state."
- John Ralston Saul
(Related: Capitalism, Democracy, State, Will)
"My argument has always been that this is not an anti-Bush film, it's a pro-democracy film. And if Bush comes out on the wrong side of democracy, that's his problem."
- John Sayles
(Related: Argument, Democracy, Film, Wrong)
"Since the birth of our Nation, no other right has been more important than having the ability to vote. Unfortunately, as history has shown, the denial of this right to minorities is a scar on our system of democracy."
- Jan Schakowsky
(Related: History, Ability, Democracy, Denial, Nation, Right, Vote)
"We will not let terrorists change our way of life; we will not live in fear; and we will not undermine the civil liberties that characterize our Democracy."
- Adam Schiff
(Related: Change, Life, Fear, Civil liberties, Democracy, Will)
"Democracy is a political method, that is to say, a certain type of institutional arrangement for arriving at political - legislative and administrative - decisions and hence incapable of being an end in itself."
- Joseph A. Schumpeter
(Related: Being, Decisions, Democracy, End)
"Bureaucracy is not an obstacle to democracy but an inevitable complement to it."
- Joseph A. Schumpeter
(Related: Bureaucracy, Democracy)
"Even though the Bush campaign ad tells you that Afghanistan is a new democracy at the Olympics because of Bush's efforts, Afghanistan hasn't actually had an election."
- Peter Schuyler
(Related: Afghanistan, Democracy)
"It would be hard to ignore the absence of democracy in any Arab nation."
- Jack Schwartz
(Related: Absence, Democracy, Nation)
"Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East."
- Jack Schwartz
(Related: Democracy, Israel)
"Saddam's ouster will not necessarily lead to the same result, since Iraq lacks democratic traditions. Democracy doesn't just consist of holding elections."
- Brent Scowcroft
(Related: Democracy, Elections, Iraq, Result, Traditions, Will)
"America has never seen itself as a national state like all others, but rather as an experiment in human freedom and democracy."
- Brent Scowcroft
(Related: America, Democracy, Freedom, State)
"After all, we didn't bring democracy to Germany in 1945; Hitler destroyed democracy there first."
- Brent Scowcroft
(Related: Democracy, First, Germany)
"I've always been very interested in the struggle for human rights, not just here but abroad, and I wanted to be an inside player in that struggle. I wanted to make the laws reflect our ideals and ideas in this democracy that is America."
- Leah Ward Sears
(Related: Ideas, America, Democracy, Rights, Human rights, Ideals, Laws, Struggle)
"When the body of the people is possessed of the supreme power, it is called a democracy."
- Charles de Secondat
(Related: Power, People, Body, Democracy)
"Let me reassure that the Kingdom of Cambodia a country with independence, neutrality, peace, freedom, democracy and human rights as you all have seen, shall be existing with no end."
- Hun Sen
(Related: Peace, Country, Democracy, End, Freedom, Independence, Rights, Human rights, Neutrality)
"The elections that have taken place in these countries are a reflection of the lure of Democracy, and the resilience of our men and women in uniform who helped bring freedom to many who never knew what the word truly meant."
- Jim Sensenbrenner
(Related: Men, Women, Countries, Democracy, Elections, Freedom, Reflection, Word)
"Under the leadership of this President, the state of the union is not strong. We are being pulled apart rather than pulling together. Our democracy is suffering from the choices being made, and yet we are offered the same tired excuses and unrealistic analyses."
- Jose Serrano
(Related: Leadership, Being, Choices, Democracy, Excuses, President, State, Suffering)
"The merit of our Constitution was, not that it promotes democracy, but checks it."
- Horatio Seymour
(Related: Constitution, Democracy, Merit)
"We shouldn't waste any more time in making sure that democracy is properly rooted in our political life and the supremacy of the law becomes an integral part of our state's structure."
- Ahmet Necdet Sezner
(Related: Life, Time, Democracy, Law, State, Waste)
"It's not a democracy here, it's the Middle East."
- Silvan Shalom
(Related: Democracy)
"My optimism is not based primarily on the successful march of democracy in recent times but rather is based on the experience of having lived in a fear society and studied the mechanics of tyranny that sustain such a society."
- Natan Sharansky
(Related: Experience, Society, Fear, Successful, Optimism, Democracy, March, Tyranny)
"Japan is not a Western democracy. The Japanese have kept their traditions, culture and heritage, but they have joined the community of free nations."
- Natan Sharansky
(Related: Community, Culture, Democracy, Nations, Traditions)
"By helping readers understand these mechanics, I hope they will appreciate why freedom is for everyone, why it is essential for our security and why the free world plays a critically important role in advancing democracy around the globe."
- Natan Sharansky
(Related: Hope, Democracy, Freedom, Security, Will, World)
"It is important to remember that some of the most serious thinkers once thought that democracy was not compatible with the cultures of Germany, Italy, Japan, Latin America and Russia."
- Natan Sharansky
(Related: Thought, America, Democracy, Germany, Italy, Russia)
"The three main sources of scepticism are first, that not every people desires freedom; second, that democracy in certain parts of the world would be dangerous; and third, that there is little the world's democracies can do to advance freedom outside their countries."
- Natan Sharansky
(Related: People, Countries, Democracy, First, Freedom, World)
"The two most important things that can be done to promote democracy in the world is first, to bring moral clarity back to world affairs and second, to link international policies to the advance of democracy around the globe."
- Natan Sharansky
(Related: Clarity, Democracy, First, World)
"The word democracy has no meaning. Duty has gone. Only rights remain."
- Fiona Shaw
(Related: Democracy, Duty, Rights, Meaning, Word)
"Also, an area that interests me - and it will probably take years to state what I mean - is the period of the rise of democracy, with Tom Paine, which is around the turn of the 18th century into the 19th."
- Fiona Shaw
(Related: Democracy, State, Will, Years)
"Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve."
- George Bernard Shaw
(Related: Democracy)
"Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few."
- George Bernard Shaw
(Related: Government, Democracy)
"Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few."
- George Bernard Shaw
(Related: Democracy)
"We cannot cut and run. If we are to ensure freedom and democracy, it is essential that we follow through on our obligation to bring about stability in Iraq."
- Richard Shelby
(Related: Democracy, Freedom, Iraq, Obligation, Stability)
"Democracy's a very fragile thing. You have to take care of democracy. As soon as you stop being responsible to it and allow it to turn into scare tactics, it's no longer democracy, is it? It's something else. It may be an inch away from totalitarianism."
- Sam Shepard
(Related: Being, Care, Democracy, May)
"I will protect democracy with my life."
- Thaksin Shinawatra
(Related: Life, Democracy, Will)
"I think the good old British democracy should keep scrutinising and pressing to get the truth out."
- Clare Short
(Related: Truth, Democracy, Old)
"The road to democracy may be winding and is like a river taking many curves, but eventually the river will reach the ocean."
- Chen Shui-bian
(Related: Democracy, May, Ocean, Road, Will)
"The grandeur and strength or our people and democracy are as big as a forest."
- Chen Shui-bian
(Related: People, Strength, Democracy)
"We have had a long wait for democracy."
- Chen Shui-bian
(Related: Democracy)
"Even if I were knocked down by one gunshot it wouldn't affect our democracy and I wasn't knocked down and I have great confidence in our democracy and in Taiwan and in the people of Taiwan."
- Chen Shui-bian
(Related: People, Confidence, Democracy)
"However, I must say that I am very happy to see that we have such a positive result for our first referendum in our history and that gives me more confidence in Taiwan's democracy."
- Chen Shui-bian
(Related: History, Positive, Confidence, Democracy, First, Result)
"I believe in the greatness of our democracy."
- Chen Shui-bian
(Related: Greatness, Democracy)
"I have great confidence in Taiwan's democracy."
- Chen Shui-bian
(Related: Confidence, Democracy)
"It has been well over half a century and I'm glad to say we have taken the right path from authoritarianism to democracy and this is a road of no return."
- Chen Shui-bian
(Related: Democracy, Right, Road)
"I can't talk about foreign policy like anyone who's spent their life reading and learning foreign policy. But as a citizen in a democracy, it's very important that I participate in that."
- Ron Silver
(Related: Life, Policy, Democracy, Foreign policy, Learning, Reading, Talk)
"Democracy encourages the majority to decide things about which the majority is ignorant."
- John Simon
(Related: Democracy, Majority)
"I'm not overly alarmist about it, but I do think there are some worrying signs, like the growing accumulation of wealth by a very small proportion of the population, plus elections in the US are much more dominated by money than anywhere else calling itself a democracy."
- Peter Singer
(Related: Money, Wealth, Democracy, Elections, Population)
"It means that, in fact, it's - whether fascist is the right word I don't know - more of a plutocracy than anything resembling a democracy; it has become a nation controlled by a very small, very wealthy elite."
- Peter Singer
(Related: Democracy, Fact, Nation, Right, Word)
"Nobody should be allowed to tinker with democracy. We will not discontinue the good works of the past government."
- Manmohan Singh
(Related: Government, Democracy, Past, Will)
"All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy."
- Alfred E. Smith
(Related: Democracy)
"It's not the voting that's democracy, it's the counting."
- Alfred Emanuel Smith
(Related: Democracy, Voting)
"When public access to voting is impaired or when public confidence in voting is diluted, democracy suffers and our freedom is less secure."
- DeForest Soaries
(Related: Confidence, Democracy, Freedom, Public, Voting)
"The Election Assistance Commission represents a major, unprecedented commitment from the federal government to sustained freedom and vibrant democracy. I am humbled by the prospect of being one its charter members."
- DeForest Soaries
(Related: Government, Being, Commitment, Democracy, Freedom)
"What we say is that democracy means that you have the right to vote without intimidation and undue burdens. But if you stand in line for six hours, technically, today there is no document, no standard, no law that says that that's wrong."
- DeForest Soaries
(Related: Democracy, Law, Right, Today, Vote, Wrong)
"If we are to keep our democracy, there must be one commandment: "Thou shalt not ration justice.""
- Sophocles
(Related: Democracy, Justice)
"The good news, to relieve all this gloom, is that a democracy is inherently self-correcting. Here, the people are sovereign. Inept political leaders can be replaced. Foolish policies can be changed. Disastrous mistakes can be reversed."
- Theodore C. Sorensen
(Related: People, Democracy, Leaders, Mistakes, News, Political leaders, Self)
"To my mind, there is a solution which has to do with democracy, because democratic governments are subject to the will of the people. So, if the people will it, you can actually create international institutions through the democratic states."
- George Soros
(Related: People, Democracy, Mind, Solution, states, Will)
"A full and fair discussion is essential to democracy."
- George Soros
(Related: Democracy)
"I chose America as my home because I value freedom and democracy, civil liberties and an open society."
- George Soros
(Related: Home, Society, America, Civil liberties, Democracy, Freedom, Open, Value)
"The essence of a democracy is a free electorate."
- Arlen Specter
(Related: Democracy)
"Voting is fundamental in our democracy. It has yielded enormous returns."
- Arlen Specter
(Related: Democracy, Voting)
"We know that if we're going to remain economically competitive in the world, and viable as a civic democracy, that we're going to have to get more people educated to higher levels."
- Margaret Spellings
(Related: People, Democracy, World)
"The essence of democracy is its assurance that every human being should so respect himself and should be so respected in his own personality that he should have opportunity equal to that of every other human being to show what he was meant to become."
- Anna Garlin Spencer
(Related: Opportunity, Being, Democracy, Personality, Respect)
"Thru the auspices of the viewers who become - I think this is an import - in a democracy, become a working unit with law enforcement against the criminals."
- Robert Stack
(Related: Democracy, Law)
"Public confidence in the integrity of the Government is indispensable to faith in democracy; and when we lose faith in the system, we have lost faith in everything we fight and spend for."
- Adlai E. Stevenson
(Related: Faith, Government, Confidence, Democracy, Fight, Integrity, Public)
"As citizens of this democracy, you are the rulers and the ruled, the law-givers and the law-abiding, the beginning and the end."
- Adlai E. Stevenson
(Related: Beginning, Democracy, End, Law)
"Democracy cannot survive without the guidance of a creative minority."
- Harlan Stone
(Related: Democracy, Guidance, Minority)
"It's not the voting that's democracy; it's the counting."
- Tom Stoppard
(Related: Democracy, Voting)
"In this film George presents issues that are important, essential and vital, whoever you are, about constitutional rights and the bedrock of a democracy. I am drawn to those kinds of stories because they inspire me - they are responsible to a populace and responsible to man."
- David Strathairn
(Related: Democracy, Film, Rights, Man)
"People who want to understand democracy should spend less time in the library with Aristotle and more time on the buses and in the subway."
- Simeon Strunsky
(Related: Time, People, Democracy, Want)
"Debate is almost non-existent and no one is apparently accountable to anybody apart from their political party bosses. It is bad news for democracy in this country."
- Helen Suzman
(Related: Bosses, Country, Debate, Democracy, News, Party)
"Now that we have a democracy and you can go back and the airport air is not laden with evil any more, you can actually breathe oxygen when you land in Johannesburg."
- Janet Suzman
(Related: Democracy, Evil, Land, Now)
"We can no longer allow multinationals to parade as agents of progress and democracy in the newspapers, even as they subvert it at the workplace."
- John J. Sweeney
(Related: Progress, Democracy, Newspapers)
"The best Governments of the World have bin composed of Monarchy, Aristocracy, and Democracy."
- Algernon Sydney
(Related: Aristocracy, Democracy, World)
"In real danger sometimes even a democracy can really keep a secret."
- Stuart Symington
(Related: Danger, Democracy)
"But democracy isn't a state of perfection. It has to be improved, and that means constant vigilance."
- Antonio Tabucchi
(Related: Democracy, Perfection, State, Vigilance)
"This is supposed to be a participatory democracy and if we're not in there participating then the people that will manipulate and exploit the system will step in there."
- George Takei
(Related: People, Democracy, Will)
"My door will always be open to those who genuinely renounce violence and seek peaceful accommodation into our nascent democracy."
- Jalal Talabani
(Related: Democracy, Open, Violence, Will)
"A lot of young poets today, from what I've heard and experienced, can't get their heads past George W. Bush, and I've heard so many poems about this democracy and this era of politics that I'm kind of bored by it."
- Amber Tamblyn
(Related: Politics, Democracy, Past, Poems, Poets, Today)
"We in the press have a special role since there is no other institution in our society that can hold the President accountable. I do believe that our democracy can endure and prevail only if the American people are informed."
- Helen Thomas
(Related: Society, People, American, Democracy, President, Press)
"You don't spread democracy through the barrel of a gun."
- Helen Thomas
(Related: Democracy)
"And when we draw lines in the sand with regard to certain basic things that are vital to our interest and to the interest of democracy and our friends around the world, we have to be willing to back that up."
- Fred Thompson
(Related: Democracy, Friends, Interest, World)
"What is most important for democracy is not that great fortunes should not exist, but that great fortunes should not remain in the same hands. In that way there are rich men, but they do not form a class."
- Alexis de Tocqueville
(Related: Men, Class, Democracy)
"Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude."
- Alexis de Tocqueville
(Related: Equality, Democracy, Liberty, Nothing, Restraint, Socialism, Word)
"Democracy is not about one party dominating."
- Ed Townsend
(Related: Democracy, Party)
"Democracy means that people can say what they want to. All the people. It means that they can vote as they wish. All the people. It means that they can worship God in any way they feel right, and that includes Christians and Jews and voodoo doctors as well."
- Dalton Trumbo
(Related: God, People, Democracy, Doctors, Right, Vote, Want, Worship)
"Dishonesty in government is the business of every citizen. It is not enough to do your own job. There's no particular virtue in that. Democracy isn't a gift. It's a responsibility."
- Dalton Trumbo
(Related: Business, Government, Virtue, Democracy, Dishonesty, Job, Responsibility)
"Everybody now seems to be talking about democracy. I don't understand this. As I think of it, democracy isn't like a Sunday suit to be brought out and worn only for parades. It's the kind of a life a decent man leads, it's something to live for and to die for."
- Dalton Trumbo
(Related: Life, Democracy, Man, Now, Talking)
"In this era of the global village, the tide of democracy is running. And it will not cease, not in China, not in South Africa, not in any corner of this earth, where the simple idea of democracy and freedom has taken root."
- Paul Tsongas
(Related: Idea, Democracy, Earth, Freedom, Running, Will)
"Two hundred years ago, our Founding Fathers gave us a democracy. It was based upon the simple, yet noble, idea that government derives its validity from the consent of the governed."
- Paul Tsongas
(Related: Government, Idea, Democracy, Fathers, Founding, Validity, Years)
"The nature of a democracy consists to an important degree in the right of the people to criticize problems and mistakes."
- Walter Ulbricht
(Related: Nature, People, Democracy, Mistakes, Problems, Right)
"Corruption is nature's way of restoring our faith in democracy."
- Peter Ustinov
(Related: Faith, Nature, Corruption, Democracy)
"Journalism is what maintains democracy. It's the force for progressive social change."
- Andrew Vachss
(Related: Change, Democracy, Force, Journalism)
"A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but won't cross the street to vote in a national election."
- Bill Vaughan
(Related: America, Democracy, Fight, Ocean, Vote, Will)
"Everybody has a right to be defended, and every lawyer has a duty to defend people accused. And my office is to defend him, to discuss the accusation point by point, as I think this is a normal step in a democracy."
- Jacques Verges
(Related: People, Democracy, Duty, Office, Right)
"We're not a democracy."
- Gore Vidal
(Related: Democracy)
"Democracy is supposed to give you the feeling of choice, like Painkiller X and Painkiller Y. But they're both just aspirin."
- Gore Vidal
(Related: Choice, Democracy, Feeling)
"Our form of democracy is bribery, on the highest scale."
- Gore Vidal
(Related: Bribery, Democracy)
"Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates."
- Gore Vidal
(Related: Democracy, Elections)
"The great thing about our system of democracy is when they call you for jury duty, you have to come... It's an honor and a privilege. I was called and I've got to be here."
- Antonio Villaraigosa
(Related: Democracy, Duty, Honor, Jury, Privilege)
"Democracy is an extraordinary adventure. It's difficult, full of daring and risk and danger. But it's the greatest gift we have."
- Jon Voight
(Related: Adventure, Danger, Democracy, Risk)
"The ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination."
- Voltaire
(Related: Government, Assassination, Democracy)
"An ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination."
- Voltaire
(Related: Government, Assassination, Democracy)
"Ultimately, freedom and democracy are stronger than fear and tyranny."
- Gijs de Vries
(Related: Fear, Democracy, Freedom, Tyranny)
"The majority of the world's Muslims do not believe that terrorism is a legitimate strategy or that Islam is incompatible with democracy."
- Gijs de Vries
(Related: Strategy, Islam, Democracy, Majority, Terrorism, World)
"Democracy is constructed like an edifice, freedom by freedom, right by right, until it reaches its snapping point."
- Abdoulaye Wade
(Related: Democracy, Freedom, Right)
"I told the students that we can exert pressure without resorting to violence, and that we can move towards democracy without violence; that way, God will allow it."
- Abdurrahman Wahid
(Related: God, Democracy, Pressure, Students, Violence, Will)
"While Kuwait is not a democracy, giving only half the population a voice in their government is not a policy this Congress should support and one that I am glad that Kuwait's leaders are changing."
- Ginny B. Waite
(Related: Government, Policy, Congress, Democracy, Giving, Leaders, Population, Support, Voice)
"Since President Bush took office in 2001, this Congress has supported an agenda of democracy, freedom and expansion of rights for all peoples throughout the world."
- Ginny B. Waite
(Related: Congress, Democracy, Freedom, Rights, Office, President, World)
"If we put our trust in the common sense of common men and 'with malice toward none and charity for all' go forward on the great adventure of making political, economic and social democracy a practical reality, we shall not fail."
- Henry A. Wallace
(Related: Men, Trust, Adventure, Charity, Common sense, Democracy, Malice, Reality)
"The worldwide, agelong struggle between fascism and democracy will not stop when the fighting ends in Germany and Japan."
- Henry A. Wallace
(Related: Democracy, Fascism, Fighting, Germany, Struggle, Will)
"In an effort to eliminate the possibility of any rival growing up, some monopolists would sacrifice democracy itself."
- Henry A. Wallace
(Related: Sacrifice, Possibility, Democracy, Effort, Growing up)
"Monopolists who fear competition and who distrust democracy because it stands for equal opportunity would like to secure their position against small and energetic enterprise."
- Henry A. Wallace
(Related: Fear, Opportunity, Competition, Democracy, Distrust)
"Until democracy in effective enthusiastic action fills the vacuum created by the power of modern inventions, we may expect the fascists to increase in power after the war both in the United States and in the world."
- Henry A. Wallace
(Related: Power, War, Action, Democracy, Inventions, May, states, United, World)
"This dullness of vision regarding the importance of the general welfare to the individual is the measure of the failure of our schools and churches to teach the spiritual significance of genuine democracy."
- Henry A. Wallace
(Related: Failure, Vision, Churches, Democracy, Importance, Measure, Schools, Spiritual, Welfare)
"Throughout American history many of our social gains and much of our progress toward democracy were made possible by the active intervention of the federal government."
- Harold Washington
(Related: Government, History, Progress, American, Democracy)
"I think if people value democracy, they had damn well better get out and exercise their right to vote while their vote still means something."
- Bob Weir
(Related: People, Democracy, Exercise, Right, Value, Vote)
"The word democracy comes from the Greek and means, literally, government by the people."
- Robert Welch
(Related: Government, People, Democracy, Word)
"Newspapers write ringing editorials declaring that this is and always was a democracy."
- Robert Welch
(Related: Democracy, Newspapers)
"And for well over a hundred years our politicians, statesmen, and people remembered that this was a republic, not a democracy, and knew what they meant when they made that distinction."
- Robert Welch
(Related: People, Democracy, Politicians, Years)
"For not only every democracy, but certainly every republic, bears within itself the seeds of its own destruction."
- Robert Welch
(Related: Democracy, Destruction)
"In a democracy there is a centralization of governmental power in a simple majority."
- Robert Welch
(Related: Power, Democracy, Majority)
"The American polity is infected with a serious imbalance of power between elites and masses, a power which is the principal threat to our democracy."
- Paul Wellstone
(Related: Power, American, Democracy)
"The idea of democracy has been stripped of it moral imperatives and come to denote hollowness and hypocrisy."
- Paul Wellstone
(Related: Idea, Democracy, Hypocrisy)
"As free citizens in a political democracy, we have a responsibility to be interested and involved in the affairs of the human community, be it at the local or the global level."
- Paul Wellstone
(Related: Community, Democracy, Responsibility)
"Education and democracy have the same goal: the fullest possible development of human capabilities."
- Paul Wellstone
(Related: Education, Development, Democracy)
"Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time."
- E. B. White
(Related: Time, People, Democracy, Right, Suspicion)
"The flood of money that gushes into politics today is a pollution of democracy."
- Theodore White
(Related: Money, Politics, Democracy, Pollution, Today)
"I say that democracy can never prove itself beyond cavil, until it founds and luxuriantly grows its own forms of art, poems, schools, theology, displacing all that exists, or that has been produced anywhere in the past, under opposite influences."
- Walt Whitman
(Related: Art, Democracy, Past, Poems, Schools, Theology)
"Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people."
- Oscar Wilde
(Related: People, Democracy)
"Democratic societies can no longer give religious fanatics a free hand to abuse and murder non believers. Such action betrays contempt for the basic human rights which animate any democracy with meaning."
- Armstrong Williams
(Related: Action, Abuse, Contempt, Democracy, Fanatics, Rights, Human rights, Meaning, Murder, Religious)
"For starters, this country embodies something utterly unique: History's first democratic empire. Beginning in the post war era, we have used free trade and democracy to create a series of interlocking relationships that end war."
- Armstrong Williams
(Related: War, History, Beginning, Country, Democracy, End, First, Post, Relationships, Trade)
"A global democracy works only when countries trust one another."
- Armstrong Williams
(Related: Trust, Countries, Democracy)
"The defense of our democracy against the forces that threaten it from without has made some of its failures to function at home glaringly apparent."
- Wendell Willkie
(Related: Home, Defense, Democracy)
"But if we had to trade with a Europe dominated by the present German trade policies, we might have to change our methods to some totalitarian form. This is a prospect that any lover of democracy must view with consternation."
- Wendell Willkie
(Related: Change, Democracy, Europe, Present, Trade)
"When a government goes to war, particularly a democracy, it is the most solemn and awesome responsibility of our leaders - to decide to send our kids to go off and kill and die for us."
- Joe Wilson
(Related: Government, War, Democracy, Kids, Leaders, Responsibility)
"The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy."
- Woodrow Wilson
(Related: Government, People, Bosses, Democracy)
"My own ideals for the university are those of a genuine democracy and serious scholarship. These two, indeed, seem to go together."
- Woodrow Wilson
(Related: Democracy, Ideals, University)
"The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty."
- Woodrow Wilson
(Related: Peace, Democracy, Liberty, World)
"Democracy is not so much a form of government as a set of principles."
- Woodrow Wilson
(Related: Government, Democracy, Principles)
"Too many people expect wonders from democracy, when the most wonderful thing of all is just having it."
- Walter Winchell
(Related: People, Democracy, Wonders)
"In our so-called democracy we are accustomed to give the majority what they want rather than educate them to understand what is best for them."
- Carter G. Woodson
(Related: Democracy, Majority, Want)
"I'm tired of hearing it said that democracy doesn't work. Of course it doesn't work. We are supposed to work it."
- Alexander Woollcott
(Related: Work, Democracy, Hearing)
"A free America... means just this: individual freedom for all, rich or poor, or else this system of government we call democracy is only an expedient to enslave man to the machine and make him like it."
- Frank Lloyd Wright
(Related: Government, America, Democracy, Freedom, Machine, Man, Poor)
"We will not fail your expectations of us as a new nation dedicated to peace, democracy, and freedom."
- Shigeru Yoshida
(Related: Peace, Democracy, Expectations, Freedom, Nation, Will)
"I believe our country has to do whatever we can do to protect ourselves-we're king of the hill. We need to protect democracy and the lives of those who live in the free world."
- Rick Yune
(Related: Country, Democracy, World)
"It's true that the war in Iraq opened a distance in relations between part of Europe and the U.S. government, but our basic ties are stronger than that. We share democracy, free markets and a commitment to Western security. We differ on how to guarantee that security."
- Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero
(Related: War, Government, Commitment, Democracy, Europe, Iraq, Security)
"The risk of a terrorist victory is greater when in fighting terror, democracy betrays its own essence."
- Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero
(Related: Victory, Democracy, Fighting, Risk, Terror)
"The theory of relativity worked out by Mr. Einstein, which is in the domain of natural science, I believe can also be applied to the political field. Both democracy and human rights are relative concepts - and not absolute and general."
- Jiang Zemin
(Related: Science, Democracy, Rights, Human rights, Relativity, Theory)
"Liberal democracy - as you know, in the old days, we were saying we want socialism with a human face. Today's left effectively offers global capitalism with a human face, more tolerance, more rights and so on. So the question is, is this enough or not? Here I remain a Marxist: I think not."
- Slavoj Zizek
(Related: Capitalism, Democracy, Rights, Liberal, Old, Question, Saying, Socialism, Today, Tolerance, Want)