Best 3411 quotes in «democracy quotes» category

It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it; consequently, the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning.

It is a paradox that far too few Americans participate in the wonderful ritual of democracy that we call Election Day.

It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own.

It is as hard for the good to suspect evil, as it is for the bad to suspect good.

It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority.

It is a tribute to Indian democracy that a person from a poor family, an ordinary family, is today addressing the nation from the Red Fort.

It is basically a strategy to destroy the essence of democracy, which is the competitiveness and choices of candidates on the ballot.

It is clear that whatever language of democracy [Barack] Obama and his administration use is very tactically deployed, and has as its main aim the extension of US power and interests.

It is dangerous for a national candidate to say things that people might remember.

It is clear that whatever language of democracy Obama and his administration use is very tactically deployed, and has as its main aim the extension of US power and interests.

It is democracy I am really suffering from as much as I am suffering from the opposition.

It is far more honest to be undeservedly ignored than to be honoured without merit.

It is important that democracy in Lebanon is protected and that Hezbollah will not be supported by outside forces like Syria and Iran.

It is impossible to build enduring institutions without solid values. For us, the fundamental value is that associated with democracy.

It is in the nature of democracies, perhaps, that while visionaries are sometimes necessary to make them, once made they can be managed by mediocrities.

It is intolerable that around 1 in 5 of the world's adults are illiterate. How can we build equitable information societies or thriving democracies if so many remain without the basic tools of literacy?

It is my principle that the will of the majority should always prevail.

It is never smart, even in a strong democracy, to declare some debate off limits. In a weakening democracy it is catastrophic.

It is not enough to merely defend democracy. To defend it may be to lose it; to extend it is to strengthen it. Democracy is not property; it is an idea.

It is not democracy to send in billions of dollars to push regime change overseas. It isn't democracy to send in the NGOs to re-write laws and the constitution in places like Ukraine. It is none of our business.

It is not our diversity which divides us; it is not our ethnicity, or religion or culture that divides us. Since we have achieved our freedom, there can only be one division amongst us: between those who cherish democracy and those who do not.

It is not true that democracy will always safeguard freedom of conscience better than autocracy. Witness the most famous of all trials. Pilate was, from the standpoint of the Jews, certainly the representative of autocracy. Yet he tried to protect freedom. And he yielded to a democracy.

It is obvious, I think, that national democracy withers. This has to do with globalisation.

It is one of the saddest spectacles of our time to see a great democratic movement support a policy which must lead to the destruction of democracy and which meanwhile can benefit only a minority of the masses who support it. Yet it is this support from the Left of the tendencies toward monopoly which make them so irresistible and the prospects of the future so dark.

It is past time for the U.S. government to fully fulfill our moral obligation to those who have fought for freedom and democracy.

It is possible for a dictator to govern in a liberal way. And it is also possible for a democracy to govern with a total lack of liberalism. Personally I prefer a liberal dictator to democratic government lacking liberalism.

It is, the most beautiful truth in morals that we have no such thing as a distinct or divided interest from our race. In their welfare is ours, and by choosing the broadest paths to effect their happiness we choose the surest and the shortest to our own.

It is probable that democracy owes more to nonconformity than to any other single movement.

It is the evil in man that makes democracy necessary, and man's belief in justice that makes democracy possible.

It is the hard-boiled employer, not the soft-hearted species, that incites most of our strikes and does most ot endanger the harmonious progress of democracy.

It is when it is contended that "in a democracy right is what the majority makes it to be" that democracy degenerates into demagoguery.

It is true that authoritarian governments increasingly see the internet as a threat in part because they see the US government behind the internet. It would not be accurate to say they are reacting to the threat posed by the internet, they are reacting to the threat poised by United States via the internet. They are not reacting against blogs, or Facebook or Twitter per se, they are reacting against organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy funding bloggers and activists.

It is wrong and dangerous to extol freedom by telling people that they will certainly be all right once they are free. The most we can say of democracy or freedom is that they give our personal abilities a little more influence on our well-being.

It may well happen that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more constant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves.

It may be concluded that a pure democracy . . . can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction.

It's fair to say that, for much of my lifetime, New Zealand certainly was a property-owning democracy and working people, ordinary people, had assets.

It's abominable, and it's a disgrace to a great democracy to see what's happened in our country. The main reason for that has been the enormous infusion of high quantities of money to campaigns - governors, Congress, president and the U.S. Senate.

It seems to me that actual democracy is where all of us get to participate and it's not just a sort of a blunt little dry hump in a ballot box, but an actual penetrative process.

I told the students that we can exert pressure without resorting to violence, and that we can move towards democracy without violence; that way, God will allow it.

It's a democracy and if I am outvoted, I have to accept the majority decisions.

It scares me when the Europeans demand more and more democracy. It sounds like times past, when people here demanded more and more socialism.

It's characteristic of democracy that majority rule is understood as being effective not only in politics but also in thinking. In thinking, of course, the majority is always wrong.

It's hard in all countries. Democracy is hard, but it's better than the alternatives.

It should come as no surprise that Russia continues its effort to manipulate Western democracies in a way to sow discord and disagreements between our countries in NATO and within the United States or any other Western European country. And it's something the United States obviously must be on guard against.

It should be the power of our vote, not the size of our bank accounts, that drives our democracy

It's important to address young people in the reopening of New Orleans. In rebuilding, let's revisit the potential of American democracy and American glory.

It's not a matter of just what we don't like and who we are most afraid of. We need an affirmative agenda if we're going to move forward as a democracy.

It's in the interest of the U.S. to maintain a strong democracy in Colombia.

It's not a democracy here, it's the Middle East.

It's politely assumed that democracy is a means of containing and restraining violence. But violence comes not from genes but from ideas