Democracy Quotes

It would be folly to argue that the people cannot make political mistakes. They can and do make grave mistakes. They know it they pay the penalty but compared with the mistakes which have been made by every kind of autocracy they are unimportant.

Calvin Coolidge

Democracy is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people.

Harry Emerson

The world must be made safe for democracy.

Woodrow Wilson

Democracy is the government of the people by the people for the people.

Abraham Lincoln

Democracy means not "I am as good as you are " but "You are as good as I am."

Theodore Parker

All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.

Alfred E. Smith

I believe in Democracy because it releases the energies of every human being.

Woodrow Wilson

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

Charles Evans Hughes

Democracy is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

In a democracy the opposition is not only tolerated as constitutional but must be maintained because it is indispensable.

Walter Lippmann

It has been said that Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

Winston Churchill

Democracy is based on the conviction that man has the moral and intellectual capacity as well as the inalienable right to govern himself with reason and justice.

Harry S. Truman

If you want to understand democracy spend less time in the library with Plato and more time in the buses with people.

Simeon Strunsky

Democracy is a small hard core of common agreement surrounded by a rich variety of individual differences.

James Bryant Conant

People often say that in a democracy decisions are made by a majority of the people. Of course that is not true. Decisions are made by a majority of those who make themselves heard and who vote - a very different thing.

Walter H. Judd

Democracy means government by the uneducated while aristocracy means government by the badly educated.

G.K. Chesterton

It is the greatest good to the greatest number which is the measure of right and wrong.

Jeremy Bent ham

The greatest blessing of our democracy is freedom. But in the last analysis our only freedom is the freedom to discipline ourselves.

Bernard Baruch

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

E B White

The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.

Aristotle

What men value in the world is not rights but privileges.

H.L. Mencken

As I would not be a slave so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.

Abraham Lincoln

Democracy is a festival of mediocrity.

E. M. Cioran

The job of a citizen is to keep his mouth open.

Günter Grass

Destroying the joint means building a new system in which it is not OK to allow people to be marginalised, exploited and discriminated against, it's not OK to ignore the needs of future generations, it's not OK to wreck this extraordinary, beautiful, fragile planetary environment that sustains us - our Mother Earth.

Christine Milne

If you are stupid enough not to know the difference between the devil and the angel, you quickly find the devil! This is what happens to most people in democracies just after elections!

Mehmet Murat ildan

Multilate. Ha Ha Ha,' said Nusswan, avuncular and willing to pretend it was a clever joke. 'Its all relative. At the best of times, democracy is a see saw between complete chaos and tolerable confusion. You see, to make a democratic omelette you have to break a few democratic eggs. To fight fascism and other evil forces threatening our country, there is nothing wrong in taking strong measures. Especially when the foreign hand is always interfering to destabilize us. Did you know the CIA is trying to sabotage the Family Planning Programme?

Rohinton Mistry

Love of democracy can be likened to a mother's love for her son.It must be cherished,nurtured and protected for all of time

J.R. Ortiz

...the majority in a democracy has no more right to tyrannize over a minority than, under a different system, the latter would to oppress the former.

Theodore Roosevelt

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

Edith Hamilton

Because it was enough for one of those favorites of His Distinguished Highness to issue a thoughtless decree. These young smart alecks see it, and they immediately imagine some fatal result and come running to the rescue. They start trying to mend things, straighten things out, patch things up and untangle them. And so instead of using their energy to build their own vision of the future, instead of trying to put their irresponsible, destructive fantasies into action, our malcontents had to roll up their sleeves and start untangling what the minsters had knotted up. And there's always a lot of work to untangling! So they untangle and untangle, drenched in sweat, wearing their nerves to shreds, running around, patching things up here and there, and in all this rush and overwork, in this whirlwind, their fantasies slowly evaporate from their hot heads.

Ryszard Kapuściński

Wouldn't it be more of a free country," persisted Francie "if we could ride in them free?" "No." "Why?" "Because that would be Socialism," concluded Johnny triumphantly, "and we don't want that over here." "Why?" "Because we got democracy and that's the best thing there is," clinched Johnny.

Betty Smith

It does not require much historical knowledge (though it may require a certain historical perspective) to see that many, if not all, of the "aristocratic" elements of the Constitution (as in other countries) have gradually disappeared or were washed away during the past two hundred years, while the monarchic powers of the presidency and the democratic extent of majority rule became more and more overwhelming.

John Lukacs

For a quarter-century British governments had tried and failed to combine economic growth, increased social service provision and a high level of employment. The second depended ultimately on the first, but when difficulty arose, the first had always been sacrificed to the other two. The United Kingdom was, after all, a democracy whose votes, greedy and gullible, had to be placated.

J.M. Roberts

The PM glanced a look of pure malevolence. A terrifying glimpse into what madness, ego and naked ambition it takes to lead a modern democracy.

Alan Dean

Is it possible thatwe ‘hate’ politics because we have forgotten its specifi c and limitednature, its overwhelming value, and also its innate fragility? Could it bethat our expectations are so high that politics appears almost destinedto disappoint? Democratic politics cannot make ‘every sad heart glad’,as Crick argued, nor did it ever promise to do so. But not alwaysgetting what you want, an awareness that public governance is oftenslow and bureaucratic, a frustration that some decisions are hard tounderstand or have to be made in secret, disbelief and anger at the selfinterestedbehaviour of a small number of politicians, and an acceptancethat some people will always take out more from the system thanthey put in—these are the prices you pay for living in a democracy.

Matthew Flinders

Is it possible that we ‘hate’ politics because we have forgotten its specific and limited nature, its overwhelming value, and also its innate fragility? Could it be that our expectations are so high that politics appears almost destined to disappoint? Democratic politics cannot make ‘every sad heart glad’, as Crick argued, nor did it ever promise to do so. But not always getting what you want, an awareness that public governance is often slow and bureaucratic, a frustration that some decisions are hard to understand or have to be made in secret, disbelief and anger at the selfinterested behaviour of a small number of politicians, and an acceptance that some people will always take out more from the system than they put in—these are the prices you pay for living in a democracy.

Matthew Flinders

Political cynicism, disengagement, democratic decadence — call it what you will — is too often an excuse for physical and intellectual laziness.

Matthew Flinders

When majority is insane, sane must go to asylum.

Mark Twain

Mrs. Cole was a perfect democrat. She hated all kids equally.

Stephen King

A pure democracy is generally a very bad government, It is often the most tyrannical government on earth; for a multitude is often rash, and will not hear reason.

Noah Webster

Vote? What's so fun about voting? You should never vote, everyone knows that. If you vote and your guy wins you can't later complain because you helped put him there. That's why I never vote, so I can later complain.

Sergio de la Pava

But democrats are seldom welcome on planets run by totalitarian governments, and scarcely more welcome on planets where anarchy prevails--this is due to the very nature of democracy, the only practical compromise between totalitarianism and anarchy.

Christopher Stasheff

Freedom, democracy, and socialism can only ever exist together; it is impossible to have any one without the other two.

Michelle Templet

By creating a society in which all people, of all colors, were granted freedom and citizenship, the Haitian Revolution forever transformed the world. It was a central part of the destruction of slavery in the Americas, and therefore a crucial moment in the history of democracy, one that laid the foundation for the continuing struggles for human rights everywhere. In this sense we are all descendents of the Haitain Revolution, and responsible to these ancestors.

Laurent Dubois

Democracy in America was never the same as Liberty in Europe. In Europe Liberty was a great life-throb. But in America Democracy was always something anti-life. The greatest democrats, like Abraham Lincoln, had always a sacrificial, self-murdering note in their voices. American Democracy was a form of self-murder, always. Or of murdering somebody else... The love, the democracy, the floundering into lust, is a sort of by-play. The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted.

D.H. Lawrence

[The Internet] affects democracy... As more and more citizens express what they think, and defend it in writing, that will change the way people understand public issues. It is easy to be wrong and misguided in your head. It is harder when the product of your mind can be criticized by others. Of course, it is a rare human who admits that he has been persuaded that he is wrong. But it is even rarer for a human to ignore when he has been proven wrong. The writing of ideas, arguments, and criticism improves democracy.

Lawrence Lessig

The more degrees of freedom there are in practice, the wider the discussion and debate can be.

Thomas Newkirk

If there is no way to compel those who find a majority decision distasteful to go along with it, then the last thing one would want to do is to hold a vote: a public contest which someone will be seen to lose. Voting would be the most likely means to guarantee humiliations, resentments, hatreds, in the end, the destruction of communities. What is seen as an elaborate and difficult process of finding consensus is, in fact, a long process of making sure no one walks away feeling that their views have been totally ignored.

David Graeber

We must face the ultimate contradiction that our free and democratic society was made possible by massive slave labor.

David Brion Davis

Kenya DOES NOT belong to 2 tribes only. Kenya has 42 tribes. to say that the decision of 2 tribes is the decision of the whole country is fallacy and outright dictatorship and tribalismAkuku Mach Pep, Democracy on Trial

Akuku Mach Pep

Democracy is a fine thing. But that doesn't mean citizens have a right to run riot whenever they disagree with something.#Page: 120

Kazuo Ishiguro

Change represents the real spirit of democracy and the real America.

Bryant McGill

Democracy is a brawl settled in advance by counting heads.

David P. Gontar

If at the end of the day the people of our city escape, it will be good.But if somehow our democracy remains standing - it will be even better.

Boaz Yakin

when your actions towards acquiring leadership in any country portrays blatant mischief orchestrated towards disregarding the concepts of the constitution, you do not only become guilty of hijacking power which rightfully belong to the people, but also, you are guilty of violation of the rights of freedom of the same people that you purport to want to lead. Like any match, elections is competition towards democracy, and all competitions have rules that set guidelines in that particular competition. Any violation of such rules renders that competition invalid. True democracy does not condone compromises. True democracy upholds and adheres to the rule of law, for it is the rule of law that can explicitly define democracy.

Akuku Mach Pep

you call democracy freedom. I call it corporation.

Jeffrey Fischer

the government bailed out the corporate sector. while the people thay supported the government financally, were ignored and left to fend for themselves. is this what you call democracy?

Jeffrey Fischer

Democracy is a con game. It’s a word invented to placate people to make them accept a given institution. All institutions sing, ‘We are free.’ The minute you hear ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’, watch out… because in a truly free nation, no one has to tell you you’re free.

Jacque Fresco

Democracy is like a tamborine - not everyone can be trusted with it.

John Oliver

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Democracy Quotes

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