Quotes About Democracy

This country is founded on a certain tension." He pressed his fists against each other. "There is a dualism inherent in democracy—opposing forces pushing against each other, always. Culture clashes. Different belief systems. All coming together to create this country. But this balance takes a great deal of energy—and, as I've said, spirits are attracted to energy.

no people ever recognize their dictator in advance. He never stands for election on the platform of dictatorship. He always represents himself as the instrument [of] the Incorporated National Will.... When our dictator turns up you can depend on that he will be one of the boys, and he will stand for everything traditionally American.' Dorothy Thompson qtd in

I laughed. 'Claudius Laeta means, Faustus, the Emperor's choice should be steered by his freedmen. Government by secretariat. Democracy through bureaucracy.

I would sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University.

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

We are the only institution in our society that can question a president on a regular basis and make him accountable. Otherwise, he could be king.

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.

Freedom of the press is not an end in itself but a means to the end of a free society.

Good and just society is neither the thesis of capitalism nor the antithesis of communism, but a socially conscious democracy which reconciles the truths of individualism and collectivism.

Yet we can maintain a free society only if we recognize that in a free society no one can win all the time. No one can have his own way all the time, and no one is right all the time.

In a racially divided society, majority rule is not a reliable instrument of democracy.

The interest in encouraging freedom of expression in a democratic society outweighs any theoretical but unproven benefit of censorship.

Values are most important. Democratic values have to be instilled from childhood and the child sees at an early stage in life in every situation in society.

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate power of the society but the people themselves.

I would say democracy once meant an organizational society and a state, in which the individual citizen is - feels - responsible, and acts responsibly, and participates in decision-making.

The library is central to our free society. It is a critical element in the free exchange of information at the heart of our democracy.

how can a democratic discourse exist in a corporate owned informational system? Who, for example, possesses freedom of speech in such a society?

Democracy is not a mere consequence, a certain stage in the development of society. It is the condition on which the survival of productive forces depends.

The Marxians love of democratic institutions was a stratagem only, a pious fraud for the deception of the masses. Within a socialist community there is no room left for freedom.

Carry out the republican principle of universal suffrage, or strike it from your banners and substitute 'Freedom and Power to one half of society, and Submission and Slavery to the other.'

Any suggestion that the most open and diverse society on the planet is likely to in any way resemble Russia requires a suspension of common sense that is pretty hard to deal with.

The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.

A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person.

Artists and art institutions have to learn how to play hardball. A democratic society needs a democratic art and we have a right to demand it.