Quotes About Democracy

The best measure of how a democracy is functioning is how it allocates the goods of the land, the public trust assets.

The public trust is at the core of both a free market economy and a democracy.

We deserve elections we can trust.

My people are going to learn the principles of democracy, the dictates of truth and the teachings of science. Superstition must go.

A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.

Democracy is a constant tension between truth and half-truth and, in the arsenal of truth, there is no greater weapon than fact.

Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it.

Democracy is four wolves and a sheep voting on dinner.

The law can seem remote, arcane, the stuff of specialists. But it isn't, because for those of us who live in democracies, the law begins with us.

Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett had tried to block the entrance to the University of Mississippi of James Meredith, an African American veteran of the United States Air Force. Georgia Senator Richard Russell, after whom one of the three United States Senate office buildings is named, lauded the "great and courageous governor of Mississippi" and lamented: "It is regretful that we have no one on the Supreme Court that recognizes the fundamentals of democracy.

Democracy implies government by the people. Aristocracy implies a government of the rich … and in those words are contained the sum of party distinction.

I'm always one sentence away from bringing up democracy, religious freedom, the rights of minorities, all of these in danger.

Israel was born under the British mandate. We learned from the British what democracy means, and how it behaves in a time of danger, war and terror. We thank Britain for introducing freedom and respect of human rights both in normal and demanding circumstances.

Israel welcomes the wind of change, and sees a window of opportunity. Democratic and science-based economies by nature desire peace. Israel does not want to be an island of affluence in an ocean of poverty. Improvements in our neighbours' lives mean improvements to the neighbourhood in which we live.

You know who is against democracy in the Middle East? The husbands. They got used to their way of life. Now, the traditional way of life must change. Everybody must change. If you don't give equal rights to women, you can't progress.

I thought of the courage it had taken for those young people in Tehran to go out into the streets holding those simple placards—"Where is my vote?"—with the openness and simplicity of a child, only to be razed down by bullets.

The one thing you've got going: your one vote.

Unless nominees are chosen democratically, with the widest possible participation in the process, nothing else really matters.

The role of the teacher remains the highest calling of a free people. To the teacher, America entrusts her most precious resource, her children and asks that they be prepared ... to face the rigors of individual participation in a democratic society.

If you want to understand democracy, spend less time in the library with Plato, and more time in the buses with people.

People who want to understand democracy should spend less time in the library with Aristotle and more time on the buses and in the subway.

America is basically about freedom.

The club is not a business. It's a populist democracy.

Power is always personal: any study of a Western democratic leader today reveals that, even in a transparent system with its short periods in office, personalities shape administrations. Democratic leaders often rule through trusted retainers instead of official ministers. In any court, power is as fluid as human personality.