Quotes About Democracy

We intend to lead a government of purpose and direction so that we can offer the people of this nation the opportunity to move forward to independence, democracy and equality.

Furthermore, when citizens are all almost equal, it becomes difficult for them to defend their independence against the aggressions of power.

Do not think your single vote does not matter much. The rain that refreshes the parched ground is made up of single drops.

The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.

A sailing ship is no democracy; you don't caucus a crew as to where you'll go anymore than you inquire when they'd like to shorten sail.

Anything that keeps a politician humble is healthy for democracy.

The spirit of democracy cannot be superimposed from the outside. It must come from within.

It is often in the name of cultural integrity as well as social stability and national security that democratic reforms based on human rights are resisted by authoritarian governments.

No really I'm pretty sure voting mattered a scant 15 years ago but now it's just a way to see how many old people live in your neighborhood.

Two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch may be an example of democracy, but it hardly serves as an enduring model of liberty.

the common good is defined by who wins at the polls, and the policies they make. Like it or lump it.

A great wave of humiliation and shame swept over me. Shame that I belonged to a race that could be so dealt with; and shame for my country, that it, the great example of democracy to the world, should be the only civilized, if not the only state on earth, where a human being would be burned alive. My heart turned bitter within me. I could understand why Negroes are led to sympathize with even their worst criminals and to protect them when possible.

Cities must urge urban planners and architects to reinforce pedestrianism as an integrated city policy to develop lively, safe, sustainable and healthy cities. It is equally urgent to strengthen the social function of city space as a meeting place that contributes toward the aims of social sustainability and an open and democratic society.

The identification with the common lot which is the essential idea of Democracy becomes the source and expression of social ethics. It is as though we thirsted to drink at the great wells of human experience, because we knew that a daintier or less potent draught would not carry us to the end of the journey, going forward as we must in the heat and jostle of the crowd.

If in a democratic country nothing can be permanently achieved save through the masses of the people, it will be impossible to establish a higher political life than the people themselves crave.

All those hints and glimpses of a larger and more satisfying democracy, which literature and our own hopes supply, have a tendency to slip away from us and to leave us sadly unguided and perplexed when we attempt to act upon them.

As the acceptance of democracy brings a certain life-giving power, so it has its own sanctions and comforts. Perhaps the most obvious one is the curious sense which comes to us from time to time, that we belong to the whole, that a certain basic well being can never be taken away from us whatever the turn of fortune.

The cure for the ills of Democracy is more Democracy.

I am still baffled by those who feel that criticizing America is unpatriotic, a view increasingly being adopted in the United States since 9/11 as an excuse to render suspect what has always been an American right. An active, brave, outspoken (and heard ) citizenry is essential to a healthy democracy.

The novel as a form is usually seen to be moral if its readers consider freedom, individuality, democracy, privacy, social connection, tolerance and hope to be morally good, but it is not considered moral if the highest values of a society are adherence to rules and traditional mores, the maintenance of hierarchical relationships, and absolute ideas of right and wrong. Any society based on the latter will find novels inherently immoral and subversive.

I don't believe that math and nature respond to democracy. Just because very clever people have rejected the role of the infinite, their collective opinions, however weighty, won't persuade mother nature to alter her ways. Nature is never wrong.

Die offenkundig demokratische Gesinnung des Kindes kennt keine Hierarchie. Das Schicksal eines Tagelöhners in seinem Schweiß, eines hungrigen Altersgenossen, eines gequälten Pferdes und eines geschlachteten Huhnes machen es eine Zeitlang traurig. Hund und Vogel, Schmetterlinge und Blume stehen ihm nahe, in einem Steinchen oder in der Muschel sieht es seinen Bruder.

What the "old establishment" or "corrupt, immoral elites" supposedly have always done, the populists will also end up doing—only, one would have thought, without guilt and with a supposedly democratic justification.

Even for the most minimal definitions of democracy—as a mechanism to ensure peaceful turnovers in power after a process of popular will-formation —it is crucial that citizens be well informed about politics; otherwise, governments can hardly be held accountable.