Quotes About Democracy

Grant me thirty years of equal division of inheritances and a free press, and I will provide you with a republic.

The genius of democracies is seen not only in the great number of new words introduced but even more in the new ideas they express.

There are two things which will always be very difficult for a democratic nation: to start a war and to end it.

The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.

I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run.

Americans are so enamored of equality, they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.

It is indeed difficult to imagine how men who have entirely renounced the habit of managing their own affairs could be successful in choosing those who ought to lead them. It is impossible to believe that a liberal, energetic, and wise government can ever emerge from the ballots of a nation of servants.

There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult - to begin a war and to end it.

It is above all in the present democratic age that the true friends of liberty and human grandeur must remain constantly vigilant and ready to prevent the social power from lightly sacrificing the particular rights of a few individuals to the general execution of its designs. In such times there is no citizen so obscure that it is not very dangerous to allow him to be oppressed, and there are no individual rights so unimportant that they can be sacrificed to arbitrariness with impunity.

It is the right of our people to organize to oppose any law and any part of the Constitution with which they are not in sympathy.

The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.

Don't spend more than you take in. Control your debt. Empower the private sector. We have 50 states out there that are laboratories of democracy. Why are we not empowering the states to find solutions to our problems, particularly health care, as opposed to looking to a one-size-fits-all solution from Washington, D.C.? That puzzles even me.

Healthy debate has been replaced by automatic sensors that eliminate the need for actual talking during a filibuster - a la 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.' Robust debate is necessary in a democratic society. Instead, our discourse has been relegated to media spin by expert entertainers.

People are constantly applying double standards. Take the United States, for example. Washington wants the whole world to admire the country for its democracy. Then the government sends out its army, in the name of this democracy, and leaves behind the kind of chaos we see in Iraq.

Do the elected officials in Washington stand with ordinary Americans - working families, children, the elderly, the poor - or will the extraordinary power of billionaire campaign contributors and Big Money prevail? The American people, by the millions, must send Congress the answer to that question.

Events in America show the extent to which democracy there is fuelled by populism - Barack Obama's victory is a manifestation not of Washington's need for change, but of America's. That is not how democracy works in England.

Money has too big an influence on our politics in Washington and somehow we need to do something about that.

In my view, far from deserving condemnation for their courageous reporting, the New York Times, the Washington Post and other newspapers should be commended for serving the purpose that the Founding Fathers saw so clearly.

On the evidence we have, the meritocratic ideal ends up being just as undemocratic as the old emphasis on inheritance and tradition, and it forges an elite that has an aristocracy's vices (privilege, insularity, arrogance) without the sense of duty, self-restraint and noblesse oblige that WASPs at their best displayed.

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.

Corruption is a cancer: a cancer that eats away at a citizen's faith in democracy, diminishes the instinct for innovation and creativity; already-tight national budgets, crowding out important national investments. It wastes the talent of entire generations. It scares away investments and jobs.

We shouldn't waste any more time in making sure that democracy is properly rooted in our political life and the supremacy of the law becomes an integral part of our state's structure.

While universal suffrage remains an ideal yet to be attained, if you're lucky enough to be able to vote, don't let that privilege go to waste.

It's a relief to hear the rain. It's the sound of billions of drops, all equal, all equally committed to falling, like a sudden outbreak of democracy. Water, when it hits the ground, instantly becomes a puddle or rivulet or flood.