Best 3411 quotes in «democracy quotes» category

If you know how to read, you have a complete education about life, then you know how to vote within a democracy. But if you don't know how to read, you don't know how to decide. That's the great thing about our country - we're a democracy of readers, and we should keep it that way.

If you live in a democracy and don't have freedom of information, it's not a democracy. And people have to understand that if you don't have freedom of information online, it's not going to be offline, either.

If you look at Indian society, it's a society made up of minorities. There's nobody who's not a minority, whether it's ethnicity, caste or religion. But the whole effort now is to confect a political constituency - an ethnic or a religious constituency that can coalesce into a political majority in order to deal with this model of representative democracy. That process has been a hundred years in the making in this part of the world.

If you look at US internal documents, they explain very clearly what the threat of Cuba was. So, back in the early 1960s the State Department described the threat of Cuba as Castro's successful defiance of US policy, going back to the Monroe Doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine established the US claim to dominate the Western hemisphere and Castro was successfully defying that. That's not tolerable. It is like somebody saying "let's have democracy in Greece," and we just can't tolerate that so we have to destroy the threat at its roots.

If you look at the way all of the new reform movements dedicated to the public interest are living and thriving on the Internet, I do think there is still some considerable hope that the full participation of individuals in that conversation of democracy can once again restore the integrity of the way our democracy works.

If you put your politicians up for sale, as the US does (alone in this among industrialized democracies), then someone will buy them--and it won’t be you; you can’t afford them.

If you put a chain around the neck of a slave, the other end fastens itself around your own.

If you read Mein Kampf, Hitler's book, which I have outside, I bought it when I was eleven, Hitler said, "democracy inevitably leads to Marxism" - now you work that one out. It's so interesting that when the poor have the vote they will use it to remove the privileges of the rich.

If you're not turned on by politics, politics will turn on you.

If you want a good argument against democracy, spend five minutes with a voter.

If you want to be a Jewish state and you want to remain a democracy, you have to have a two-state solution.

If you want to reinstate the 14.4 billion dollars that Bush cut out of the veterans program then vote democrat.

I gave a speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2016 and warned of Trump. America has survived for almost 250 years with its imperfect democracy, but, you know, maybe it's a better democracy than elsewhere. And I am sure American democracy will survive.

I grew up in a dictatorship, so I really appreciate democracy. I think democracy isn't just a random thing that's around - a democratic society needs the involvement of everybody.

I grew up in San Francisco. And so I'm informed in a certain kind of way about, you know, believing in democracy and believing in America. And I'm a very ardent patriot.

I guess 35 years ago, I thought we had more of a democracy than we actually do. Majority support doesn't help unless the majority is active and votes - but the opposition minority votes a much greater proportion, so we often lose by a narrow margin.

I hated the culture, I hated the work. I very quickly realized that this wasn't what I wanted to do. So, after two years, I took some writing courses - I always loved to write - and I figured the only way I was going to get paid to write was in journalism. I really wasn't very involved politically with anything up until that point. Then I started reading about the second Palestinian Intifada, and I spoke to friends in activist and journalism circles. Then, somehow by complete luck, I ended up at Democracy Now.

I guess I think that films have to be made totally by fascists -- there's no room for democracy in making film.

I have a lot of faith and confidence in Cuban democracy.

I have absolutely no idea what my generation did to enrich our democracy. We dropped the ball. We entered a period of complacency and closed our eyes to the public corruption of our democracy.

I hate war... for the dictatorships it puts in the place of democracies, and for the starvation that stalks after it.

I have always favored Capitalism as the best economic system and Democracy as the best political system. They both have the most potential for improving the lives of people. However, both systems need to be reexamined and refreshed so that, in fact, they do serve the majority of people.

I have always insisted on the need for local self-government for Russia, but I never opposed this model to Western democracy. On the contrary, I have tried to convince my fellow citizens by citing the examples of highly effective local self-government systems in Switzerland and New England, both of which I saw first-hand.

I have always been of the mind that in a democracy manners are the only effective weapons against the bowie-knife.

I have defended democracy, human rights, and brotherhood between peoples. And I'll keep doing so for as long as I live.

I have great confidence in Taiwan's democracy.

I have made a film about jazz that tries to look through jazz to see what it tells us about who we are as a people. I think that jazz is a spectacularly accurate model of democracy and a kind of look into our redemptive future possibilities.

I have often before now been convinced that a democracy is incapable of empire.

I have no doubt that there are Russian efforts to disturb the fabric of American democracy, but they're disruption efforts. The working theory behind the intelligence report on Russian interference in the president election is that Russia influenced American public opinion. We may not like that, but if it influenced American public opinion, at least in the guise of legitimate activity - which is what the report says - then there's nothing you can do about that. Where it would be improper and illegal would be if there was actual collusion in those efforts. We don't know that.

I have said democracy and freedom do not work too well if you are hungry, if you are starving.

I have seen, and I know firsthand, indeed from my own pen, how the organized Right has sabotaged not only journalism but also democracy and truth.

I have wanted to give Iraq a lesson in democracy - because we're experienced with it, you know. And, in democracy, after a hundred years, you have to let your slaves go. And, after a hundred and fifty years, you have to let your women vote. And, at the beginning of democracy, is that quite a bit of genocide and ethnic cleansing is quite okay. And that's what's going on now.

I intend to do what I can, working with my congressional colleagues, Republicans and Democrats, to help bring about the changes to the practices and Institutions of our democracy that they want and deserve.

I hope for an America where we can all contend freely and vigorously, but where we will treasure and guard those standards of civility which alone make this nation safe for both democracy and diversity.

I hope March is a guide for today's activists. It took raw courage for young people to volunteer to go to Mississippi in the summer of 1964, and unrelenting faith in the power of democracy to organize such a massive campaign.

I hope that with the success of the transition to democracy in Tunisia that we will export to Egypt a working democratic model.

I inspired a new generation in the same way the previous generation inspired me. I believe that our democracy itself is very inspiring.

I know both Secretary [Hillary] Clinton and President [Barack] Obama were very gracious and I respect that a lot in the way they handled it the day after, two days after. But I wish they would says something about it too. Because after all, these are supporters of President Obama and Hillary Clinton and maybe they could say something about this. Really not the right thing in the democracy.

I knew my affection for the Philippines was equally as telling: a democracy on paper, apparently well ordered, regularly subverted by irrational chaos. A place where I'd felt instantly at home.

I like the idea of democracy. You have to have someone everyone distrusts.

I like democracy. I like to be able to throw out my political leaders when they get things wrong, and we don't get to do that with Brussels.

I left Russia in 1993 optimistic that democracy had taken hold despite the obstacles.

I look forward to an america in which commands respect throughout the world, not only for its strength, but for its civilization as well. And I look forward to a world in which we will be safe not only for democracy and diversity but also for personal distinction.

I lived in countries that had no democracy... so I don't find myself in the same luxury as you do. You grew up in freedom, and you can spit on freedom because you don't know what it is not to have freedom.

Im a cynic about corporate democracy and boards.

I'm a centrist. There is a lot going on socially that I don't like, but I feel that in a democracy you work from the center, not because I like the center - I'm a marginalized person politically - but because the center is where things get done.

I'm a citizen in a democracy. To call me an activist would be redundant. It's not a spectator sport. If we all become non-participants, it no longer works.

I'm also very much aware that it is you who brought democracy to Chile, you set up a constitution suitable for democracy, you put it into effect, elections were held, and then, in accordance with the result, you stepped down.

I'm all for experimenting with sortition - randomly selected representative bodies of citizens. But I don't favor direct democracy. We're busy. We have lives. There is reddit. Who has time to work out the right answer to the thousand policy choices a gov't must make all the time?

Imagine what would happen if the government were to take the wealth of 200,000 of India's richest people and redistribute it amongst 2 million of India's poorest? We would hear a lot about socialist appropriation and the death of democracy. Why should taking from the rich be called appropriation and taking from the poor be called development?