Quotes About Democracy

A public library is the most democratic thing in the world. What can be found there has undone dictators and tyrants.

The question of the possibility and prospects of industrial democracy has come to be of key importance in discussions on democratic socialism; it has in itself nothing in common with the apocalyptic dreams of the New Left as inspired by Marcuse or Wilhelm Reich, and is historically and logically independent of Marxism.

like all over-thrown Communist leaders he became a democrat as soon as he was ousted from power.

To conceive of an education as a commodity (as if it were a polo pony or an Armani suit) is to construe the idea of democracy as the freedom of a market instead of a freedom of the mind. I can understand why the mistake is both easy and convenient to make, but unless we stop telling ourselves that America is best understood as the sum of its gross domestic product, we stand little chance of re-imagining our history or reengineering our schools.

The way people in democracies think of the government as something different from themselves is a real handicap. And, of course, sometimes the government confirms their opinion.

The ancient commks though that their own respect for custom and common law, as against tyrannous caprice, was a unique product of their culture. But actually it was a witness to their continuity with an older village democracy we first meet in Mesopotamia: an institution that seems to precede all more sophisticated exercise of control by a dominant minority, imposing their alien traditions or their equally alien upper-class innovations upon a subjugated if acquiescent population.

American Democracy did not imply any equality of wealth, but did demand a wholesome sameness of thought, dress, painting, morals, and vocabulary.

We urge all democratic nations and the United Nations to answer the Iraqi Governing Council's call for support for the people of Iraq in making the transition to democracy.

As a prisoner of conscience committed to peaceful transition to democracy, I urge Europe to apply economic sanctions against Ethiopia. What short-term pain may result will be compensated by long-term gain. A pledge to re-engage energetically with a democratic Ethiopia would act as a catalyst for reform.

Mexico doesn't deserve what has happened to us. A democratic change is urgent, a change that will permit us to stop being a loser country.

The government is us; we are the government, you and I.

My life had been defined by the apartheid years. Now we were going into an era of democracy... and I believed that I didn't really have a function as a useful artist in that anymore.

I think politics often seems remote, and anything we can do to show more of the workings - how you make the sausage - is useful.

Technology can be useful to organise a large number of people online and offline against the common goal of getting a particular dictator out of power. But at the end of the day, somebody still has to run for president with a different last name and deliver for the population.

The democracy we are constructing must be able to show its usefulness and relevance.

We can't have democracy if we're having to protect you and our users from the government over stuff we've never had a conversation about. We need to know what the parameters are, what kind of surveillance the government is going to do, and how and why.

What we are witnessing is the birth of something I call 'Polisdigitocracy.' This is a form of government that counts participation and transparency as its cornerstones and uses technology as its guide. The digital revolution is allowing democracy to recall its foundations and evolution is modernizing and reinforcing our fundamental values.

Using medicine in the service of cosmesis is generally bad for patients, bad for doctors, and bad for democracy. The only exceptions are when we know the intervention will actually reduce suffering, as with a primary cleft lip repair.

At Standing Rock, we experienced, first-hand, people coming together in their communities and trying to use the levers of representative democracy to try and say, 'We don't want this in our community; we don't want this in our backyard,' and corporations using their monetary influence to completely erode that process.

Britain has been responsible for the undermining of democracy, turning a blind eye to abuses by its allies, using extraordinary rendition to get around the rule of law, passing over the denial of individual liberties to dissidents, and the evasion of the dismal situation for religious minorities.

If the people of Utah shall peacefully form a State Constitution tolerating polygamy, will the Democracy admit them into the Union?

I think it's important in a democracy such as ours that we have multiple sources to get news and information and utilize the media only if we want to get a different opinion.

To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the utmost importance to the citizens of a democracy.

As all of our lives become digital, the logic of encryption is all of our lives will be covered by strong encryption, and therefore all of our lives - including the lives of criminals and terrorists and spies - will be in a place that is utterly unavailable to court-ordered process. And that, I think, to a democracy should be very, very concerning.