Quotes About Democracy

You can't be just against communism; you've got to be for something.

above all, Locke's transforming idea that government was established and maintained by the consent of the governed, in which all men had an equal voice. "Who shall be Judge whether the Prince or Legislative act contrary to their Trust?" he had asked

A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person.

In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.

The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived.

A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to Farce, or a Tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance. and a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.

Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.

on Democracies: "there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.

Who are to be the electors of the federal representatives? Not the rich, more than the poor; not the learned, more than the ignorant; not the haughty heirs of distinguished names, more than the humble sons of obscurity and unpropitious fortune. The electors are to be the great body of the people of the United States. They are to be the same who exercise the right in every State of electing the corresponding branch of the legislature of the State.

It is the reason, alone, of the public, that ought to control and regulate the government. The passions ought to be controlled and regulated by the government.

Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.

Our First Amendment freedoms give us the right to think what we like and say what we please. And if we the people are to govern ourselves, we must have these rights even if they are misused by a minority.

Asking a question whose echo has been heard each time America went to war since, Goldman said, "How else is the world to take America seriously when democracy at home is daily being outraged, free speech suppressed, and peaceable assemblies broken up by overbearing and brutal gangsters in uniform?

China is chaotic and complex, requiring a more dictatorial management structure that doesn't have room for democracy or discussion.

The ballot box is simply a means to determine how state violence is to be used against the losers of the election and how those losers will then be exploited economically and in other ways by the majority. Thus, the incentive for minority groups to attempt to secede or seize control of the state to avoid such domination and exploitation exists in democracies and dictatorships.

Taxation without representation is tyranny.

Freedom of speech is a foundation of democracy, because without it citizens can't share their observations on folly and injustice or collectively challenge the authority that maintains them.

United States, who were certainly invested in stopping the Chinese takeover of Africa. But America had its hands tied, requiring democratic reforms and fiscal transparency before they would offer aid to the DRC. And in a country that was ranked 168 out of 198 on the Corruption Perceptions Index, such reforms were an impossibility.

I have always been of the mind that in a democracy manners are the only effective weapons against the bowie-knife.

Democracy has a habit of making itself generally disagreeable by asking the powers-that-be at the most inconvenient moment whether they are the powers-that-ought-to-be

A teacher expressed the feeling of many Americans: After Watergate, it's crazy to have trust in politicians. I'm totally cynical, skeptical. Whether it's a question of power or influence, it's who you know at all levels. Nixon said he was the sovereign! Can you believe that? I was indignant. Someone should have told him that this is a democracy, not a monarchy.32

To Lincoln's mind, the fundamental test of a democracy was its capacity to "elevate the condition of men, to lift artificial weights from all shoulders, to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all.

No man is good enough to govern another man, without that other's consent.

Lincoln understood that the greatest challenge for a leader in a democratic society is to educate public opinion.