Quotes About Democracy

For starters, this country embodies something utterly unique: History's first democratic empire. Beginning in the post war era, we have used free trade and democracy to create a series of interlocking relationships that end war.

Until democracy in effective enthusiastic action fills the vacuum created by the power of modern inventions, we may expect the fascists to increase in power after the war both in the United States and in the world.

The debates of that great assembly are frequently vague and perplexed, seeming to be dragged rather than to march, to the intended goal. Something of this sort must, I think, always happen in public democratic assemblies.

Democracy tends to be a collaborative process, a committee, a consensus. Silicon Valley tends to believe in the individual who creates a small group and does something big.

That's really what's kept me at 'TYT' even though I've gotten offers where I'd make a lot more money working at other media outlets: There's a value in making sure we inform our audience so they're responsible members of the democratic process. To me, that's more valuable than ratings or money or anything else you can get at these other networks.

Freedom to vote is valuable primarily as a means to safeguard other freedoms.

Freedom of opinion is a valuable asset in a democracy.

I have great confidence in Taiwan's democracy. I have great confidence in the universal value and in basic human rights, and I have great confidence that referenda will eventually take root and become part of our daily lives in Taiwan.

Our alliances should be understood as a means to expand our influence, not as a constraint on our power. The expansion of democracy and freedom in the world should be a shared interest and value with all nations.

Jeffersonian democracy, faulty as it is, and only the fragment of it that we have, is a thing of such preciousness, a thing of such value.

I am the son of a freedom fighter, and a son of a freedom fighter automatically imbibes the value of democracy.

Here is the most important thing for us all to remember, for the sake of our common sanity and safety: In America, the right to vote and democratically elect a president is just as precious and valued as the right to protest and express yourself against that president.

The forefathers of the United States were children of religious bigotry and persecution, and, as a result, fled Britain to create a new approach to life and government. They valued intellect and education. In fact, they outlined the principles of the United States' democracy to establish intellectual freedom from the Church.

I believe Britishness is defined not on ethnic and exclusive grounds but through shared values; our history of tolerance, openness and internationalism; and our commitment to democracy and liberty, to civic duty and the public space.

We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For 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.

The New Order wants to implement democracy in economy. It is an order to achieve a social, political, economic, and cultural society with Pancasila and Belief in God Almighty as our moral values.

There should be competition and exchanges between different countries, but there are certainly certain universal values, and that is freedom and democracy.

The principles and form of government that form the basis of democracy are compatible with Islamic values.

Japan and Australia share the universal values of freedom, democracy, the rule of law, and fundamental human rights.

In short, the problem is never the populist's imperfect capacity to represent the people's will; rather, it's always the institutions that somehow produce the wrong outcomes. So even if they look properly democratic, there must be something going on behind the scenes that allows corrupt elites to continue to betray the people. Conspiracy theories are thus not a curious addition to populist rhetoric; they are rooted in and emerge from the very logic of populism itself.

In addition to being antielitist, populists are always antipluralist. Populists claim that they, and they alone, represent the people.

populists have no problem with representation as long as they are the representatives; similarly, they are fine with elites as long as they are the elites leading the people.

In Italy, it is not Beppe Grillo's complaints about Italy's la casta that should lead one to worry about him as a populist but his assertion that his movement wants (and deserves) nothing less than 100 percent of the seats in parliament, because all other contenders are supposedly corrupt and immoral.

The danger to democracies today is not some comprehensive ideology that systematically denies democratic ideals. The danger is populism—a degraded form of democracy that promises to make good on democracy's highest ideals ("Let the people rule!"). The danger comes, in other words, from within the democratic world—the political actors posing the danger speak the language of democratic values.