Quotes About Democracy

I am a man of parliament, a man of the people. I am not a representative of the executives.

The real democratic American idea is, not that every man shall be on a level with every other man, but that every man shall have liberty to be what God made him, without hindrance.

As long as men are free to speak, a small, rational minority will always prevail over an irrational majority.

All authority belongs to the people... In questions of power let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief with chains of the Constitution.

When the voices of democracy are silenced, freedom becomes a hollow concept. No man or woman should be sentenced to the shadows of silence for something he or she has said or written.

It is the evil in man that makes democracy necessary, and man's belief in justice that makes democracy possible.

Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How's that again? I missed something.

There is no more fundamental axiom of American freedom than the familiar statement: In a free country we punish men for the crimes they commit but never for the opinions they have.

A man is not a dictator when he is given a commission from the people and carries it out.

Democracy the domination of unreflective and timorous men, moved in vast herds by mob conditions.

When dictators and tyrants seek to destroy the freedoms of men, their first target is the legal profession and through it the rule of law.

Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.

However, as Franklin warned in the New-England Courant in 1722, "in those wretched countries where a man cannot call his tongue his own, he can scarce call anything else his own. Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation, must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."9

suggested to the president that he might make the case to the international community that their support to solve pressing economic problems in Nigeria would yield the country a much needed "democracy dividend" after decades of military rule.

Meanwhile, property prices roughly trebled between 1963 and 1979, while consumer prices rose by a factor of just 2.5. But there was a sting in the tail. The same governments that avowed their faith in the 'property-owning democracy' also turned out to believe in price stability, or at least lower inflation. Achieving that meant higher interest rates.

the introduction of universal male suffrage in 1907.

To demonstrate that Western institutions have indeed degenerated, I am going to have to open up some long-sealed black boxes. The first is the one labelled 'democracy'. The second is labelled 'capitalism'. The third is 'the rule of law'. And the fourth is 'civil society'. Together, they are the key components of our civilization.

a better explanation may be the fundamental deterioration of standards in both legislation and governance that we see in nearly every democracy, regardless of their different twentieth-century histories

Meanwhile, as Francis Fukuyama has argued, the very legitimacy of democratic politics is being corroded because 'interest groups . . . are able to effectively buy politicians with campaign contributions and lobbying', a process that he dubs 'repatrimonialization

The Four Black Boxes To demonstrate that Western institutions have indeed degenerated, I am going to have to open up some long-sealed black boxes. The first is the one labelled 'democracy'. The second is labelled 'capitalism'. The third is 'the rule of law'. And the fourth is 'civil society'. Together

For a Monarchy readily becomes a Tyranny, an Aristocracy an Oligarchy, while a Democracy tends to degenerate into Anarchy.

there are two distinct viewpoints in every republic: that of the populace and that of the elite. All the laws made in order to foster liberty result from the tensions between them

the authority that is seized by violence, not that given by votes, harms republics.

for monarchy easily becomes tyranny, aristocracy easily becomes oligarchy, and democracy easily converts to anarchy. Thus anyone organizing a government according to one of the good forms does so for but a short time, because no precaution will prevent it from slipping into its opposite, so closely are the virtues and vices of the two related.