Quotes About Democracy

Let discernment in matters of fashion and entertainment determine who should get the vote, and half the country would be disenfranchised.

Donald Trump did not cause America's democratic crisis of faith, he rode to power on it. Once in control, he and other populists discovered their room for manoeuvre was expanded by the same disillusionment that helped them into office.

Only the public that elected me can dismiss me.

As revolutionary, I have no right to disregard the voice of the people.

Bring it on. Dissent is central to any democracy.

I draw a very clear distinction between populism and democracy.

The American public should simply accept no distractions. In our democracy, it is our duty to hold our elected leaders accountable. We do it at the ballot box.

PACs don't vote in the district; people do.

Everybody expects that their vote's going to count.

A good expedition doesn't need a leader at all. You are deciding day by day, discussing it in a democratic way.

Self-government is an experiment. It could still fail.

While I don't claim to be an expert, I know this: Americans want a government that serves them, not any elite or clique.

I'm a simple country neuroscientist, not an expert on democracy, but I do know something about how the brain works and how opinion-reinforcing bubbles can distort the picture of reality we build from the information we encounter on a daily basis.

In a democracy, a leader must be the head teacher, someone eager to respond to doubts and questions and explain the need for and the benefits of a new course.

This is why we feel that democracy's important: because democracy allows you to have small explosions and therefore avoid the bigger explosions.

I've never had a problem with people expressing themselves. It's one thing great about our country.

I am sometimes accused of being a dictator because I provoked the extraordinary elections by nominating the interim government. Can you imagine any dictator who provokes free elections in his own country?

When leaders are no longer beholden to the people who elected them, corruption results and the recruitment of extremists becomes easier.

If you're going to have an exchange of ideas, the only thing you can do is to meet people face-to-face in front of a crowd who may think differently than you do. I mean, that's what democracy is about, isn't it?

America says we are a great democratic society and other people should follow our example. Well, I say we benefited from slavery, and as a nation, we never faced that because the people in power chose not to.

American democracy has two faces.

When we address the disparities facing black people, we get a lot closer to a true democracy where all lives matter.

My father thought, and now I think too, that the system of democracy is entirely based upon the system of justice. If we do not have a system of justice that people believe in, the system of democracy will fail.

We need autocracies and failing democracies alike to understand that they cannot scapegoat LGBT citizens to distract from their own shortcomings.