Quotes About Democracy

Television results in a kind of zombification—not a great thing for a genuinely democratic society."1 —BRUCE LEVINE, clinical psychologist

Republic. I like the sound of the word

Why was I condemned to live in a democracy where every fool's vote is equal to a sensible man's? If all the energy that is put into diddling mugs for their votes could be turned on to useful work, what a nation we could be!

But would the perpetual flux and reflux of individualism reduce all personality to the level of mass consciousness? Would American culture remain neither bourgeois nor proletarian, but infantile? Would the moron, instead of the meek, inherit democracy?

A democracy, indeed a culture, needs some sustaining common mythos. Yet, in a world where "truth" is a variable concept—where any belief can find its adherents—how can a consensus be formed? How can we arrive at the compromises that must underlie the workings of any successful society?

Voters in a so-called democracy may depose tyrants or crooks in isolated cases but they cannot give birth, full grown like Minerva, to honest and experienced statesmen to take their places.

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy.

Since achieving their independence in 1992, the people of Croatia have built a democratic society based on the rule of law, respect for human rights, and a free market economy.

Freedom is the right to difference; being plurality, it postulates the dispersion of the absolute, its resolution into a dust of truths, equally justified and provisional. There is an underlying polytheism in liberal democracy (call it an unconscious polytheism); conversely, every authoritarian regime partakes of a disguised monotheism.

Celui qui, entre vingt et trente ans, ne souscrit pas au fanatisme, à la fureur, et à la démence est un imbécile. On n'est libéral que par fatigue, démocrate par raison. Le malheur est le fait des jeunes. Ce sont eux qui promeuvent les doctrines d'intolérance et les mettent en pratique ; ce sont eux qui ont besoin de sang, de cris, de tumulte, et de barbarie.

În cadrul naÅ£iunii, democraÅ£ia a dat naÅŸtere unei pluralit??i de formaÅ£ii divergente, care r?pesc evoluÅ£iei naÅ£ionale un sens convergent.

In molti libri americani, "democrazia" aveva una connotazione fortemente negativa. A Jefferson la parola non piaceva; come governo, la democrazia era invisa a tutti i Padri fondatori.

Per i patrizi repubblicani degli Stati Uniti, profondamente diffidenti verso la plebaglia e la democrazia, l'esito della Rivoluzione francese confermava che la democrazia dei plebei conduce alla tirannia del demagogo. «I

The working classes contribute almost nothing to our corporate public opinion, and therefore, the fact of their want of influence in Parliament does not impair the coincidence of Parliament with public opinion. They are left out in the representation, and also in the thing represented.

But in free nations, the votes so weighed or so counted must decide. A perfect free government is one which decides perfectly according to those votes; an imperfect, one which so decides imperfectly; a bad, one which does not so decide at all.

Free government is self-government. A government of the people by the people. The best government of this sort is that which the people think best.

The experiment of a strictly Parliamentary Republic—of a Republic where the Parliament appoints the executive—is being tried in France at an extreme disadvantage, because in France a Parliament is unusually likely to be bad, and unusually likely also to be free enough to show its badness.

A democracy will never, save after an awful catastrophe, return what has once been conceded to it, for to do so would be to admit an inferiority in itself, of which, except by some almost unbearable misfortune, it could never be convinced.

Five hundred and thirty-five members of Congress plied their trade near here in various buildings named after long-dead politicians. They, in turn, were surrounded by an army of lobbyists flush with cash who worked relentlessly to convince the elected officials of the unassailable righteousness of their causes. Such was democracy.

I like to think I have the guts to stand up anonymously in a western democracy and call for things no-one else believes in - like peace and justice and freedom.

That is the true genius of America, a faith in the simple dreams of its people, the insistence on small miracles. That we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door. That we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe or hiring somebody's son. That we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution, and that our votes will be counted -- or at least, most of the time.

What I worry about would be that you essentially have two chambers, the House and the Senate, but you have simply, majoritarian, absolute power on either side. And that's just not what the founders intended.

No party has a monopoly on wisdom. No democracy works without compromise. But when Governor Romney and his allies in Congress tell us we can somehow lower our deficit by spending trillions more on new tax breaks for the wealthy - well, you do the math. I refuse to go along with that. And as long as I'm President, I never will.

Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values.