Quotes About Democracy

The Bush administration doesn't particularly like public participation. It makes them look bad.

Vote counting and ballot collecting does not occur in the light of day. There are too many occasions when observers and opposing parties lose contact with the ballots.

Parties that win elections should form the government, not parties that lose elections.

America has chosen Georgia as a junior partner. The United States believes that Saakashvili is creating a democratic Georgia, but these are merely facades.

The country needs more than one-party dominance, as much as I believe the Democratic Party is the party for the middle class... We need to have a marketplace of ideas.

It may take a generation to achieve democracy. But our generation must accomplish this and not pass the buck to the next.

Anybody who respects democracy has to keep in mind that never in this country was a separate state carved out without a resolution being passed in the assembly.

Democracy passes into despotism.

But we don't have an example of a democratic society existing in a socialist economy - which is the only real alternative to capitalism in the modern world.

Let me say again that the relationship is asymmetrical: there's no democracy without a market economy, but you can have a market economy without democracy.

In a democracy, citizens have to be self-disciplined, or the country goes down, defeated from within by moral rot.

The assumption is that we need to protect politicians from outside influences. But how about protecting ourselves from the politicians?

I'm not overly alarmist about it, but I do think there are some worrying signs, like the growing accumulation of wealth by a very small proportion of the population, plus elections in the US are much more dominated by money than anywhere else calling itself a democracy.

In a democracy, citizens pass judgment on their government, and if they are kept in the dark about what their government is doing, they cannot be in a position to make well-grounded decisions.

Here, I shall take the name of Karl Marx to represent many philosophers from this tendency. Although he may only be a dubious witness for concern with democracy, there can be no doubt of his pioneering role in subordinating the theoretical to the practical life. His work is associated with the fateful incursion of the real into the sphere of theory.

Corruption is nature's way of restoring our faith in democracy.

That is why I took up the gun — not to shoot, not to kill, not to destroy, but to stop those who would do evil, to protect the vulnerable, to defend democratic values, to stand up for the freedom we have to talk … about how we can make the world a better place.

This council was called the boule and it was scarcely less cumbersome, consisting of 500 citizens, not elected but chosen by ballot, the point being that in this way it never developed a corporate identity which might have corrupted and distorted the business of the Assembly.

Pero era un Allende «sanitizado» el que era homenajeado, convertido en mártir republicano por la democracia, desprovisto de los objetivos socialistas y revolucionarios por los cuales vivió y murió.

En el movimiento estudiantil chileno entre 2011 y 2013, el espíritu de la revolución chilena de los tiempos de Allende parece una herencia viva, y es tal vez una inspiración para el levantamiento de una revolución democrática que busque una nueva vía chilena, un socialismo para el siglo xxi.

As the citizens of a democracy, the noisy patriots and protestors had a right to their opinions about Vietnam but not, it seemed to me, to the smug righteousness with which they voiced them, because they hadn't been there.

I can think of no threat more evil for our democracy . . . [than] the spirit of independence gone drunk," wrote Thomas Jefferson.

I'll be honest," I said. "I don't like it one little bit. But I'm delighted to see it exhibited without any interference from people who know as little about art as I do. Looking at it is like looking inside the head of someone who disagrees with you about nearly everything. It makes me feel uncomfortable." I shook my head sadly and sighed, "That's democracy, I guess." Another

Socrates learned to his cost, the true nature of democracy is to encourage corruption and excess in all its forms. But the