Quotes About Democracy

In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock!

All it takes to get elected in twenty-first-century America is a mob of frightened sheep and a wolf with a nice smile

Every democracy was a kind of anarchy in slow motion: any statute, any constitution could be changed, given time; any social contract, written or unwritten, could be dishonoured.

If Washington was unable to bring prosperity, stability, and meaningful democracy to Latin America, a region that falls squarely within its own sphere of influence and whose population shares many of its values, then what are the chances that it will do so for the world?

Whites have gone from being about 90% of the US population in 1965 to about 60% today, and in many locations and age groups we are already a minority. Whites are projected to slip below 50% of the population around 2042. In a democracy, that inevitably means political disempowerment. (..) If white Americans want to see what life is like as a despised minority in a majority non-white society, they need only look at South Africa today, which was also touted as a rainbow nation.

Apocalypse could not be repealed by the democratic process.

In a fearful, eroding democracy, it remains to be seen whether art continues to be free to act in the public sphere or is driven underground once more. Too many solutions involve continuing sacrifice by artists bucking the system, who are rarely rewarded for their hard work.

Your every voter, as surely as your chief magistrate, exercises a public trust.

The ship of Democracy, which has weathered all storms, may sink through the mutiny of those aboard.

I confess that during the citizenship application process the founding principles of this country have grown on me. I have come to believe in the ideal that "We the People" can come together "to form a more perfect Union". The United States represent the most awesome social experiment in the world—a melting pot of cultures, united behind the idea of living free in a democratic Republic.

As acrimony gets a tighter grip on democratic society, good people can either sit on the sidelines, debilitated by angst and daily distractions, or they can overcome indecision and work towards harmony.

Nos hiciste ver que la injusticia no solo derivaba de un conflicto de clases, sino también de razas. «La democracia real», sostenías, «solo podrá obtenerse cuando los pueblos originarios alcancen el poder político. La revolución socialista será ineficaz en los países colonizados por los blancos si no se garantiza el acceso a gobernar a quienes les arrebataron sus tierras».

We grew up in the smug belief that although the mixed economy was inefficient, it was better than capitalism because it preserved democratic freedoms.

Socialism in America will come through the ballot box.

The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeois.

Words whose sense is the most ill-defined are sometimes those that possess the most influence. Such, for example, are the terms democracy, socialism, equality, liberty, &c., whose meaning is so vague that bulky volumes do not suffice to precisely fix it. Yet it is certain that a truly magical power is attached to those short syllables, as if they contained the solution of all problems.

In a crowd men always tend to the same level, and, on general questions, a vote, recorded by forty academicians is no better than that of forty water-carriers.

Selective paternalism, for those on low incomes or for other groups needing state assistance, is perhaps even worse than general paternalism, since the minority are denied the opportunity to overturn the rule democratically. The

What makes the Arabs suitable candidates for democracy is their heritage as human beings, not their specific cultural or historical antecedents.

Al terminar el siglo XX, México había construido las instituciones necesarias para disipar ese fantasma. Las elecciones habían empezado a ser creíbles. Había empezado a existir y a manifestarse una ciudadanía real. Por primera vez en la historia política de México los partidos políticos atraían el voto verdadero de una mayoría de mexicanos que efectivamente acudían a votar. Las elecciones

El proceso total puede describirse en un triste párrafo: con el dinero de la segunda fiesta petrolera los presidentes de la democracia aceitaron al Congreso federal, el cual aceitó a los gobernadores y a los municipios, los gobernadores aceitaron a sus congresos locales, que les aprobaron todos sus gastos. Hubo dinero de sobra para hacer política y para crear la red horizontal de corrupción cuya diaria evidencia soliviantó hasta el hartazgo a la República.

Partidos y elecciones han sido ventanillas preferentes de asignación y captura de recursos públicos, pues en el México democrático sólo ellas dan acceso al poder y al dinero público suelto que este trae consigo.

La ilusión de que el dinero público puede pagar la democracia debe ser revisada radicalmente. La sociedad toda debe pagar por su democracia, no sólo el erario público.

Esa sociedad ha democratizado su sistema electoral, pero no sus valores y su cultura cívica. Era demasiado moderna para vivir en el molde de PRI. No es suficientemente moderna para construir una democracia estable.