Democracy Quotes

Democracy is interactive... It's a constant job of information, education, explanation, listening, a...

It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see...""You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?""No,...

We may still contrive to raise three cheers for democracy, although at present she only deserves two...

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of t...

...Surely the Board knows what democracy is. It is the line that forms on the right. It is the don’t...

Had he lived some centuries ago, in the brightly coloured civilizations of the past, he would have h...

We hold there is no worse enemy to a state than he who keeps the law in his own hands.

But when the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, i...

Anarchism is democracy taken seriously.

Anarchism? You bet your sweet betsy. The only cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy. Much...

Under a democratical government, the citizens exercise the powers of sovereignty; and those powers w...

The right of dissent, or, if you prefer, the right to be wrong, is surely fundamental to the existen...

Every single empire in its official discourse has said that it is not like all the others, that its ...

I was right outside the NSA [on 9/11], so I remember the tension on that day. I remember hearing on ...

Under observation, we act less free, which means we effectively are less free.

...our children must learn...to face full responsibility for their actions, to make their own choice...

I feel that the care of libraries and the use of books, and the knowledge of books, is a tremendousl...

What does it mean to call for a “democratic” solution if you don’t have a conflict-resolution mechan...

On coming to America I had the same hopes as have most European immigrants and the same disillusionm...

History is littered with the wars everybody knew could never happen.

I was thinking about honour. It's a thing that changes doesn't it? I mean, a hundred and fifty years...

Usury is the cancer of the world, which only the surgeon's knife of fascism can cut out of the life ...

In 1778, Jefferson presented to the Virginia legislature "A Bill for the More General Diffusion of K...

Democracy is susceptible to being led astray by having scapegoats paraded in front of the electorate...

Our forefathers were not only brave. I believe they were right. I believe that what they meant was t...

I have an unshaken conviction that democracy can never be undermined if we maintain our library reso...

I venture the challenging statement that if American democracy ceases to move forward as a living fo...

Presidents are selected, not elected.

From the end of the World War twenty-one years ago, this country, like many others, went through a p...

A Radical is a man with both feet firmly planted--in the air. A Conservative is a man with two perfe...

Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers...

The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to a poin...

It is the purpose of government to see that not only the legitimate interests of the few are protect...

That which now calls itself democracy differs from older forms of government solely in that it drive...

One of the strangest phenomena of our time, and one that will probably be a matter of astonishment t...

The principle of democracy is a recognition of the sovereign, inalienable rights of man as a gift fr...

The Western post-Christian civilization has picked up the Christ without His Cross. But a Christ wit...

A moral foreign policy means your positions on certain matters are clear no matter what, and that yo...

Dictators seem to learn from history much better than democrats

One of the strengths, and weaknesses, of liberal democratic societies is giving the benefit of the d...

Somehow, people always forget that it's much easier to install a dictator than to remove one

Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.

Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.

The ruling power is always faced with the question, ‘In such and such circumstances, what would you ...

It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it; consequentl...

If large numbers of people believe in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if th...

To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructe...

Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, ...

In theory at any rate each militia was a democracy and not a hierarchy . It was understood that orde...

The Republican and Democratic parties both feed out of the same bag provided by the monied system, a...

My father once told me that American democracy is a people’s democracy at heart, and that it therefo...

You can't put democracy and freedom back into a box.

In politics as in philosophy, my tenets are few and simple. The leading one of which, and indeed tha...

It shouldn't take extreme courage and a willingness to go to prison for decades or even life to blow...

Every time I do an interview people ask similar questions, such as "What is the most significant sto...

It's almost hard to imagine anything more undemocratic than the view that political officials should...

He's the President—it's the responsibility of every citizen to criticize aggressively when they thin...

All my years campaigning have given me one clear message: Voting isn't the most we can do, but it is...

I sat at a lunch table with a professor of premonotheistic spirituality, plus several women from som...

In fact, caucus, a word derived from the Algonquin languages, better reflected the layers of talking...

Citizens who refuse to obey anything but their own conscience can transform countries, it is the bas...

Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues an...

The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning th...

In Italy, for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they p...

The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletariat to the level of stupidity attained by the b...

Charity is today a 'political charity.'. . . it means the transformation of a society structured to ...

You have the army of mediocrities followed by the multitude of fools. As the mediocrities and the fo...

The job of a citizen is to keep his mouth open.

Well, anyhow, the practical outcome of all these damn democratic ideas, is that men of our quality -...

The thing they wanted they called the Vote, but that demand so hollow, so eyeless, had all the terri...

The day of democracy is past," he said. "Past for ever. That day began with the bowmen of Crecy, it ...

What men value in the world is not rights but privileges.

Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.

Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.

When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of...

The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and ha...

I do not believe in democracy, but I am perfectly willing to admit that it provides the only really ...

No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have searched the record for years, and employed agents...

Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party ...

Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. No one in this worl...

As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul...

I would go one step further and say that the willingness to challenge professional economists - and ...

Political thought is representative. I form an opinion by considering a given issue from different v...

It was not, however, to these Fascist groups, numerically unimportant as they were, that the Third R...

Conflict is not unavoidable. However, it is nonsensical to consider the institution of a state as a ...

With a [democratic] government anyone in principle can become a member of the ruling class or even t...

Without the continued existence of the democratic system and of publicly funded education and resear...

Democracy is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people...

Democracy is based on the conviction that man has the moral and intellectual capacity as well as th...

There's not a branch of publishing or broadcasting that doesn't depend in some way on advertising. I...

You don't spread democracy with a barrel of a gun.

In a democracy, if you don't get the votes, nothing else is possible, no matter how wonderful your d...

Democracy is not the end point of mankind. There may be developments in many different directions in...

This dullness of vision regarding the importance of the general welfare to the individual is the mea...

In an effort to eliminate the possibility of any rival growing up, some monopolists would sacrifice ...

If we put our trust in the common sense of common men and 'with malice toward none and charity for a...

Until democracy in effective enthusiastic action fills the vacuum created by the power of modern inv...

I, too, like yourself was a good party man: my party was that of the Church; I was ultramontane. You...

Washington was no politician as we understand the word," replied Ratcliffe abruptly. "He stood outsi...