Quotes About Democracy

As S. S. McClure well understood, the "vitality of democracy" depends on "popular knowledge of complex questions." At

For political leaders in a democracy are not revolutionaries or leaders of creative thought. The best of them are those who respond wisely to changes and movements already under way. The worst, the least successful, are those who respond badly or not at all, and those who misunderstand the direction of already visible change.

Such men of "towering" egos, in whom ambition is divorced from the people's best interests, were not men to lead a democracy; they were despots.

The domestic scene," she admitted, referring not only to the coal dispute but to a rash of racial disturbances that had recently broken out, "is anything but encouraging and one would like not to think about it, because it gives one a feeling that, as a whole, we are not really prepared for democracy.

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." A

It may be that 'the voice of the people is the voice of God' in fifty one cases out of a hundred; but in the remaining forty nine it is quite as likely to be the voice of the devil, or, what is still worse, the voice of a fool.

This was no dictator or Messiah holding forth. Franklin Roosevelt spoke in the name of the people for a resurgence of the strength of democracy, for a constitutional system capable of meeting "every stress" without losing its essential form.

With a library you are free, not confined by temporary political climates. It is the most democratic of institutions because no one - but no one at all - can tell you what to read and when and how.

We have almost reached a point where if one values democracy, one is denounced as reactionary. I think that this will be one of the attitudes that will be found most fascinating to historians of the future. For one thing, the young people who cultivate this attitude towards democracy are usually those who have never experienced its opposite: people who've lived under tyranny, value democracy.

Yet I think we may very well see countries that take it for granted they are democracies losing sight of democracy, for we are living in a time when the great over-simplifiers are very powerful.

By using our freedoms, I do not means just joining demonstrations, political parties, and so on and so forth, which is only part of the democratic process, but examining ideas, from whatever source they come, to see how they may usefully contribute to our lives and o the societies we live in.

You mean they actually vote for the lizards?' 'Oh yes,' said Ford with a shrug, 'of course.' 'But,' said Arthur, going for the big one again, 'why?' 'Because if they didn't vote for a lizard,' said Ford, 'the wrong lizard might get in.

Of course it isn't. It's just an arbitrary set of rules like chess or tennis or — what's that strange thing you British play?" "Er, cricket? Self-loathing?" "Parliamentary democracy.

You mean they actually vote for the lizards?" "Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course." "But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?" "Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?

They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want.

and they've concluded that our democratic system is an abject failure. And they think we Americans are weak, lazy, whiny, self-important global has-beens, inflated with a false sense of entitlement. In this, they are probably correct.

The rich will always be with us.' There is no answer, except to make sure we wealthy are not allowed to use our money as a tool of oppression and subversion of democracy.

make sure we wealthy are not allowed to use our money as a tool of oppression and subversion of democracy.

Unless we abandon elements which resemble a police state, we can't meet the demands of being a modern society.

Some Germans argue to-day that the struggle between Adenauer and Schumacher was the making of modern German democracy.

Remember to vote early -- and often.

I know I'm sort of farting into the wind on this. But I hope you'll fart along with me. I've always believed that it's possible to discern true statements from false statements, and that it's critically important to do so, and that we put our entire democratic experiment in peril when we don't. It's a lesson I fear our nation is about to learn the hard way. That's

Campaign contributions don't buy votes. What they buy is access.

Our democracy, our constitutional framework is really a kind of software for harnessing the creativity and political imagination for all of our people. The American democratic system was an early political version of Napster.