Quotes About Democracy

No one likes the Electoral College, expect perhaps those who were elected because of it. No one likes gerrymandering, except those doing the gerrymandering. No one likes the filibuster, except those doing the filibustering.

Despite elections and the experience of post-Soviet personal freedoms by the Russian people, the fate of democracy in Russia is perhaps more ambiguous now than at any time since the collapse of the Communist system.

Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.

We need organisations like Vote Leave to operate permanently to give a voice to those who otherwise won't be heard.

But there will be no justice, there will be no government of the people, by the people, and for the people, as long as the government and its officials permit bribery in any form.

A lot of people criticize the primaries, but I think they are absolutely essential to the education of the President of the United States.

It is through separation that you will win: no representatives, and no candidates!

Democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.

Democracy passes into despotism.

Democracy... is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.

Democracy leads to anarchy, which is mob rule.

Just as it would be madness to settle on medical treatment for the body of a person by taking an opinion poll of the neighbors, so it is irrational to prescribe for the body politic by polling the opinions of the people at large.

T]here can be no doubt that we should take the best system of government to be the one that combines [kingship, aristocracy, and democracy]. This is not just a matter of theory: we have actual experience of such a system in the Spartan constitution, which Lycurgus founded along these lines.

Similarly that is no true democracy in which the whole crowd of citizens is free to do whatever they wish or purpose, but when, in a community where it is traditional and customary to reverence the gods, to honor our parents, to respect our elders, and to obey the laws, the will of the greater number prevails, this is to be called a democracy.

T]he best analogy for the Athenian democracy is a ship without a captain. On such a ship, the crew do their duty outstandingly well as long as fear of the open sea or the threat of a storm induces them to cooperate with one another and obey the helmsman. But when there is no cause for alarm, they start to ignore their superiors and to fall out with one another.

I think we must reflect more on what democracy in the exercise of authority would mean. Is truth determined by a majority vote, only for a new 'truth' to be 'discovered' by a new majority tomorrow?

In the first ever free general elections in Pakistan, the Awami League of East Pakistan, led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, won a clear majority in the Pakistan National Assembly (PNA). With this, the history of the subcontinent reached a turning point in 1971.

my career in public life, I have had the rare privilege of being a participant in many of the defining moments of our country's democratic history. Our nation and its people have, and continue to, offer me an abundance of love, faith and affection in a measure that I find

Let the Fourth of July always be a reminder that here in this land, for the first time, it was decided that man is born with certain God-given rights; that government is only a convenience created and managed by the people, with no powers of its own except those voluntarily granted to it by the people. We sometimes forget that great truth, and we never should. Happy Fourth of July.

Universal suffrage is the government of a house by its nursery.

We are beginning to see that government by majorities means abandoning all the affairs of the country to the tide-waiters who make up the majorities in the House and in election committees; to those, in a word, who have no opinion of their own.

El virtuosismo de los ingleses en el género biográfico es sin duda una consecuencia de la antigüedad de sus instituciones democráticas y del culto al individuo que de ello se deriva.

If you were unfamiliar with the political situation in our country, you might think you were witnessing not the machinations of a democracy but the final surrender of personal consciousness into the public domain.

There is little doubt that our society is changing rapidly, but one thing will never change as long as we remain a democracy: the need for voters to know the essentials of our history and government.