Best 3411 quotes in «democracy quotes» category

You can’t have meaningful political democracy without functioning economic democracy.

You do not keep American democracy in suspense. Because, look, too many people have marched and protested and fought and died for this democracy.

You don't have any vestige of democracy in this country. A report recently came out of Princeton University claiming that, of all the policies that have been made in the last thirty years, 95% of them were in the interest of the rich and had nothing to do with what people wanted - basic services, roads, all of that. They called it an oligarchy.

You don't help a country by supporting a military regime that denies any sign of democracy, and what defeated Pakistan was its military regime.

You have fewer rights because you are a minority. Absolutely, that’s how democracy works.

You just wait and see. The lily-livered b*stards in Washington will demobilize. They'll say they've made the world safe for democracy again. The Russians are not such d*mned fools. They'll rebuild; and with modern weapons.

You know better than I that in a Republic talent is always suspect. A man attains an elevated position only when his mediocrity prevents him from being a threat to others. And for this reason a democracy is never governed by the most competent, but rather by those whose insignificance will not jeopardize anyone else's self-esteem.

You know, I'm not comfortable with people whose politics are static in a democracy.

You know, real life doesn't just suddenly resolve itself. You have to keep working at it. Democracy, marriage, friendship. You can't just say she's my best friend. That's not a given, it's a process.

You may hate Hillary Clinton and you may have good reason for hating Hillary Clinton, but Hillary Clinton is one person who even if she's elected will be gone one day and you still have the task of keeping American democracy going.

You must remember that democracy is made up not only of the executive, but the legislature and the judiciary.

Your little child is the only true democrat.

You said, 'Planning is something for communist countries; democracy and planning don't go together!' But, with all the errors we committed, our plans succeeded.

You see in Turkey, they had a remarkable success story in building up a democracy. I was in Istanbul for most of the year 1950. That was the year when the government held free and fair election, was defeated and simply withdrew from power and handed it over to the opposition, without precedent in Middle Eastern history. That was a really remarkable time and it was a fascinating and rewarding experience to be there at that time.

You said, 'How is it possible for democracy to work with an illiterate people who are dying of hunger?' But with that people we made a democracy work.

You should support Israel not because it is Jewish but because it is a sane, secular democracy. You want Lebanon to be at peace. You don't care much about Kuwait.

You start to learn that democracies don't work when it comes to artistic expression. You learn that if you don't handle your business, someone else is going to handle it and be sneaky about it, and put an extra dollar in their pocket. You learn all sorts of things you take to your next relationship. You're constantly learning about what you don't want to do, first and foremost, which leads you to what you do want to do.

You think history is going to remember the United States as a great democracy? No, they're going to think of us as a nation that became addicted to war. They'll call us warlords.

A call to embrace democracy is the worst insult to a society that is still alien to civilisation. It is like being asked to dance to the tune of mob justice.

According to Oxfam, for example, the fifty largest American companies have, by perfectly legal means, shifted over $1 trillion to offshore tax havens, costing the US government about $111 billion in lost tax revenue.

About the principle of representation and the concept of a parliament, today we have grown accustomed to associating them exclusively with the system of absolute democracy, based on universal suffrage and the principle of one man, one vote. This basis is absurd and indicates more than anything else the individualism that, combined with the pure criterion of quantity and of number, defines modern democracy. We say individualism in the bad sense, because here we are dealing with the individual as an abstract, atomistic and statistical unity, not as a ‘person’, because the quality of a person — that is, a being that has a specific dignity, a unique quality and differentiated traits—is obviously negated and offended in a system in which one vote is the equal of any other, in which the vote of a great thinker, a prince of the Church, an eminent jurist or sociologist, the commander of an army, and so on has the same weight, measured by counting votes, as the vote of an illiterate butcher’s boy, a halfwit, or the ordinary man in the street who allows himself to be influenced in public meetings, or who votes for whoever pays him. The fact that we can talk about ‘progress’ in reference to a society where we have reached the level of considering all this as normal is one of the many absurdities that, perhaps, in better times will be the cause of amazement or amusement.

A corrupt government is born not from corrupt politicians, but from corrupt citizens.

Activism begins with you, Democracy begins with you, get out there, get active! Tag, you're it

Across the sea fat kings watched and were gleeful, that something begun so well had now gone off the rails (as down South similar kings watched), and if it went off the rails, so went the whole kit, forever, and if someone ever thought to start it up again, well, it would be said (and said truly): The rabble cannot manage itself. Well, the rabble could. The rabble would. He would lead the rabble in managing. The thing would be won.

A corrupt nation is born not from corrupt politicians, but from corrupt citizens.

A diferença nos tempos de decisão pode ser interpretada como um indicador de maiores escrúpulos por parte dos ingleses. Por outro lado, tal diferença podia ter origem na simples vantagem que um ditador tem (em caso de guerra) sobre um governo democrático. Não será de todo injusto afirmar que Churchill estava consciente desta última situação. Nas memórias que escreveria mais tarde nota-se o quanto sofreu com os debates que se prolongaram ao longo de meses, acabando por demorar precisamente o tempo necessário até todo o empreendimento perder o seu sentido estratégico; tudo por causa de decisões tomadas sem convicção e novamente descartadas, do vai e vem, dos compromissos, da necessidade de argumentar justamente onde ele queria decidir e comandar.

A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.

A democracy is not truly democratic unless it's secular.

A democracy of mean and ignorant people is just as scary as any other horrible form of government.

A democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism.

After a democratic interlude the "monarchy" returns with a vengeance, returns by the back door, camouflaged, masked and diabolically perverted—a blood-curdling metamorphosis we know only from nightmares or surrealist films. The reassertion of the natural father-urge does not result in the restitution of the paternal kingdom but in the rise of the Terrifying Father, a Krónos devouring his own children, who are paralyzed by his magnetic glare like rabbits facing a boa constrictor.

A free world doesn't mean a civilized world, for freedom without responsibility leads to more chaos than lack of freedom does.

After all, wasn't the system the problem? No matter who we voted for, the government always seemed to win. What was the point of living out my little fantasy of democratic change and Justice when the real action was being fought out in secrecy, with Anonymous envelopes of cash, encrypted Whispers, secret bunkers, and secret deals?

A funny word. E-lec-tion. Say it very slowly and it sounds disgusting. But if you say it just fast enough it almost sounds real, like it might even be legitimate

A good education helps us make sense of the world and find our way in it

A great democracy has got to be progressive or it will soon cease to be great or a democracy.

All humans are equal, but not everyone has the mental capacity to decide what's best for harmony and progress of a people.

Aklıma bir bilimkurgu kongresinde Ted Sturgeon'un söyledikleri gelmişti; ona göre bilimkurgu, temel insan hak ve özgürlüklerinin dillendirilebildiği son kaleydi. Sansürcü zihinler bilimkurgu okumayan; bilimkurguyu anlamaktan aciz olan ve okusalar dahi neyi yasaklamaları gerektiğini bilemeyecek kişilerdi. Sansürcü zihniyet bilimkurguyu kendine yem etme mertebesine yükseldiği gün zaten her şey bitmiş demekti. Artık demokrasiden geriye tek bir iz bile kalmazdı.

Alexis de Tocqueville admired the laws that formally established America's democratic order, but he argued that voluntary organizations were the real source of the nation's robust civic life. John Dewey claimed that social connection is predicated on "the vitality and depth of close and direct intercourse and attachment." "Democracy begins at home," he famously wrote, "and its home is the neighborly community.

All democracy begins with you - good or bad - progressive or barbarian - sane or neurotic.

All my years campaigning have given me one clear message: Voting isn't the most we can do, but it is the least. To have a democracy, you have to want one. Still, I realize this fully only by looking back.

All of society’s problems which could be solved by money, were caused by money.

Ainsi donc, en s’alliant à un pouvoir politique, la religion augmente sa puissance sur quelques-uns, et perd l’espérance de régner sur tous.

Alexis de Tocqueville warned that as the economy and government of America got bigger, citizens could become smaller: less practiced in the forms of everyday power, more dependent on vast distant social machines, more isolated and atomized--and therefore more susceptible to despotism. He warned that if the "habits of the heart" fed by civic clubs and active self-government evaporated, citizens would regress to pure egoism. They would stop thinking about things greater than their immediate circle. Public life would disappear. And that would only accelerate their own disempowerment. This is painfully close to a description of the United States since Trump and Europe since Brexit. And the only way to reverse this vicious cycle of retreat and atrophy is to reverse it: to find a sense of purpose that is greater than the self, and to exercise power with others and for others in democratic life.

All opinions are not equal, as far as running a people is concerned.

All ponzi schemes are upheld by a centripetal force caused by those orbiting the circles of power, celebrity and wealth and trying to get in. When the ponzi scheme reaches its point of maximum growth, the force disperses and the ponzi scheme collapses.

All popular political doctrines charge your brain with various liberal ideas, such as respect for human rights and freedom, toleration, gender equality and so and so forth. However, in the political arena, a candidate with a charismatic personality in the eyes of the masses, has a great advantage over his opponents in political competition. If you want to become a likely winner, cultivate your charisma, make people believe in you and share your opinion, with no regard to what it is. Your victory depends more on your charisma than on the ideas that you follow.

All Socialism is Democratic Socialism. Socialist nations take away civil liberties by referendum.

All that shit they were fed about democracy and opportunity was just to keep them from burning down the palace.