Quotes About Democracy

We talk eloquently about our commitment to the principles of Christianity, and yet our lives are saturated with the practices of paganism. We proclaim our devotion to democracy, but we sadly practice the very opposite of the democratic creed.... This strange dichotomy, this agonizing gulf between the ought and the is, represents the tragic theme of man's earthly pilgrimage.

IT DOESN'T MATTER WHO YOU VOTE FOR, THE GOVERNMENT ALWAYS GETS IN.

There is little point in asking how 'democratic' the politics of Republican Rome were: Romans fought for, and about, liberty, not democracy.

Democracy' (demokratia) was rooted politically and linguistically in the Greek world. It was never a rallying cry at Rome, even in its limited ancient sense or even for the most radical of Roman popular politicians. In most of the conservative writing that survives, the word means something close to 'mob rule'. There is little point in asking how 'democratic' the politics of Republican Rome were: Romans fought for, and about, liberty, not democracy.

He divided the people in this way to ensure that voting power was under the control not of the rabble but of the wealthy, and he saw to it that the greatest number did not have the greatest power – a principle that we should always stand by in politics.

To put it another way, the individual rich voter had far greater voting power than his poorer fellow citizens.

no proposals or even amendments could come from the floor; in the case of almost every piece of proposed legislation we know of, the people voted in favour of what was put before them. This was not popular power as we understand

Are Members of Parliament, for example, to be seen as delegates of the voters, bound to follow the will of their electorate? Or are they representatives, elected to exercise their own judgement in the changing circumstances of government?

he saw to it that the greatest number did not have the greatest power – a principle that we should always stand by in politics.

That raised an issue still familiar in modern electoral systems. Are Members of Parliament, for example, to be seen as delegates of the voters, bound to follow the will of their electorate? Or are they representatives, elected to exercise their own judgement in the changing circumstances of government?

The motive power of democracy is love

The American, if he has a spark of national feeling, will be humiliated by the very prospect of a foreigner's visit to Congress -- these, for the most part, illiterate hacks whose fancy vests are spotted with gravy, and whose speeches, hypocritical, unctuous, and slovenly, are spotted also with the gravy of political patronage, these persons are a reflection on the democratic process rather than of it; they expose it in its process rather than of it; they expose it in its underwear.

What is democracy, Lysis?"—"It is what it says, the rule of the people. It is as good as the people are, or as bad.

What is democracy? It is what it says, the rule of the people. It is as good as the people are, or as bad.

Women ought to have representatives, instead of being arbitrarily governed without any direct share allowed them in the deliberations of government.

A handful of people, working at a handful of technology companies, through their choices will steer what a billion people are thinking today . . . I don't know a more urgent problem than this . . . It's changing our democracy, and it's changing our ability to have the conversations and relationships that we want with each other.' —Tristan Harris, former Google employee

We still have real jury trials, honest judges, and free elections, all the superficial characteristics of a functional, free democracy. But underneath that surface is a florid and malevolent bureaucracy that mostly (not absolutely, but mostly) keeps the rich and the poor separate through thousands of tiny, scarcely visible inequities.

Organized greed always defeats disorganized democracy.

The amazing closeness of American elections has never made sense. In a country in which 10 percent of the population owns 90 percent of the wealth, you'd expect the very rich to be a permanent electoral minority. That it doesn't work out that way is odd. But this is not the kind of observation pundits tend to make.

A media that currently applauds itself for calling out the lies of Donald Trump (and they are lies) still uses shameful government-concocted euphemisms like "collateral damage." Our new "Democracy Dies in Darkness" churlishness has yet to reach the Pentagon, and probably never will.

In the "Democracy Dies in Darkness" era, many in the press wear their public repudiation like badges of honor, evidence that they're on the right journalistic track. Few seem troubled by the obvious symbiosis between Trump's bottom-feeding, scandal-a-minute act and the massive boom in profits suddenly animating our once-dying industry (even print journalism, a business that pre-Trump seemed destined to go the way of 8-track tapes, has seen a bump in the Trump years).

In a society governed passively by free markets and free elections, organized greed always defeats disorganized democracy.

For poor whites, some of the most pernicious, invidious, and damaging distinctions imposed by eugenicists were those that focused on intelligence and cognitive skills, areas of human ability that these professionals regarded as key to establishing and organizing a just and meritocratic democracy.

The difficulty for democracy is, how to find and keep high ideals.