Quotes About Democracy

Western investment is usually assumed to walk hand-in-hand with the democratic values of its home countries, and indeed, opening an economy to outside money is one of the textbook steps in a shift from authoritarianism to an open society.

The difficulty in a number of Western democracies is that the playing field is being tilted. For many in the middle class, prosperity seems unattainable because a good education - today's passport to riches - is unaffordable.

The cult of the individual is killing us. I think Twitter signals the death of western civilisation, but people have been saying that since Demosthenes.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The best way to demonstrate the values of a western democracy is you put Osama bin Laden on trial; you challenge what he says.

We should not be surprised that democracy is imperfect even in Western countries.

Unlike their Western counterparts, Africans take elections very seriously - rising up early to queue patiently in line for hours under the hot sun and cast their ballots. Any misguided attempt to nullify or steal their votes will evoke a strong reaction from them.

Over the course of my life, I have made many transitions - most of them taking me further away from my Somali roots and steadily toward the enlightened mentality of Western democracy.

Many of the Western democracies - including the U.S. - have a problem that voters want benefits they don't want to pay for.

Morocco has a lot to do in terms of democracy. The daily practice of democracy evolves in time. Trying to apply a Western democratic system to a country of the Maghreb, the Middle East, or the Gulf would be a mistake. We are not Germany, Sweden or Spain.

When I turn on the news in Paris, the way Syria is covered is different from the way it is covered in Washington, D.C., or London. Even in Western society, where we hold all the values of democracy and freedom of speech, as soon as you point a camera in a particular direction, there is an angle - literally and figuratively.

The U.S.-led western alliance, while acting as an advocate of democracy, rule of law and human rights, is acting from the opposite position, rejecting the democratic principle of the sovereign right of states enshrined in the U.N. Charter and trying to decide for others what is good and what is bad.

While all democratic systems are works in progress, ours started rather late and therefore has a longer distance to cover. But democratic transformation for us is not mimicking some facets of Western governance. The focus has been on building institutions of democratic governance.

Western enthusiasm for democracy stops when those opposed to its policies are elected to office.

Margaret Thatcher's government redistributed money from rich to poor. And that's the nature of a modern western democracy.

As America has grown less economically equal, a citizen's ability to move upward has fallen behind that of citizens in other Western democracies. We are no longer the country where anyone can become anything.

We know a way now to make use of democracy, and we know how to change the attitude of people towards government, but yet the majority of people are without vision. We who have prevision must lead them and guide them into the right way if we want to escape the confusions of Western democracy and not follow in the tracks of the West.

Western people ask me whether it is a paradox that I am King but support democracy. I have to tell them that in Thailand, the King is the guarantor of democracy.

Many do not understand how precarious Western civilization is and what a joy it is. From it, we get real democracy. From it, we get the sort of intellectual tolerance that allows me to propound something that may be completely alien to you.

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.

We eliminated the monarchy. We put limits on how long one person could lead our country and on the powers they held while in office. We took differences of opinion seriously - in fact, we built them into the fabric of our government.