Quotes About Democracy

You can't see them, but it's chock full of defunct newspapermen, still spying through keyholes and persuading themselves they're acting in the best interests of democracy.

Im an American. Weve translated democracy and brotherhood and equality into enterprise and opportunity and success - and thats getting Americanised.

The problem with the Mindset of a fair Democracy is that it purports to be a fair and trustworthy system, but history shows clearly how the voters' trust has been constantly abused.

Success of democracy lies within the analytical thought of a common man.

Today, no group in America feels comfortably dominant. Every group feels attacked, pitted against other groups not just for jobs and spoils but for the right to define the nation's identity. In these conditions, democracy devolves into zero-sum group competition - pure political tribalism.

I am most deeply concerned over a trend toward conformity, a growth of anti-intellectualism, which manifests itself in a sneering attitude toward education, science, and the arts. The tendency is to stifle mental freedom, which is the very basis of a democracy's life and growth.

What we see in a democracy governed by "representatives" is not a government "for the people" but an organized conflict of interests that only results in the setting up of unstable balances of power.

No government should be given too much power, or the people comprising that government will use the power in the worst ways possible; individual freedom, when used within the boundaries of morality, is the highest good. The Constitution was written as a living testimony to this view.

For a democracy committed to being a great military power, its leaders professing to believe that war can serve transcendent purposes, the allocation of responsibility for war qualifies as a matter of profound importance.

Yesterday, Parliament announced an open forum day. Everyone was given the chance to speak. Or, in other words, no one listened.

The best way to undermine extremists' insistence that truth is on their side is to argue that theirs is merely one way of looking at things. The only truth is that there is no correct way to interpret scripture. When you open it up like that, you're effectively saying that there is no right answer. And in the absence of a right answer, pluralism is the only option. And pluralism will lead to secularism, and to democracy, and to human rights.

At this point in their history, give most Muslims the freedom to vote, and they will freely vote to tear out their political freedoms by the root.

From the mid-1870s through the mid-1890s, an insurrection swept the backcountry of the nation's South and West. Though disfigured by the white supremacy derived especially from its southern roots, this vast stirring in coveralls and calico, of sod houses and village schools and covered-wagon encampments across thousands of square miles, was the most significant mass democratic uprising the United States has ever seen.

The people who visit the [Lincoln] memorial always look like an advertisement for democracy, so bizarrely, suspiciously diverse that one time I actually saw a man in a cowboy hat standing there reading the Gettysburg Address next to a Hasidic Jew

Experience is terribly important. You'll notice that the congressmen who want to hold up the government are all junior people and new to the game. And of course they will say, 'Oh, it's Washington cynicism, where they all compromise and work out backroom deals.' But that's actually how democracy works." Which

Freedom of the press, the surest guaranty of the rights of man.

He didn't ask Where will you spend eternity? as religious the-end-is-near picketers did but rather, With what, in this modern democracy, will you meet the demands of your soul?

me for years that democrats take a low view of themselves, and are brought up to believe they're insignificant. But turn that around and you come out with megalomania, and we've seen plenty of examples of that too.

Conflict is the essential core of a free and open society. If one were to project the democratic way of life in the form of a musical score, its major theme would be the harmony of dissonance.

Democracy and the rule of law are much more fragile than most Americans realize.

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.

The way to secure liberty is to place it in the people's hands, that is, to give them the power at all times to defend it in the legislature and in the courts of justice

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty.

A boy of fifteen who is not a democrat is good for nothing, and he is no better who is a democrat at twenty.