Best 3411 quotes in «democracy quotes» category

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.

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

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.

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

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

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 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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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 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 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.

A man might share his wealth, but never his authority.

All these complexities are lost on many commentators, often the same ones who would single out the Arabs for being Arabs; now there is a keen interest in explaining any social evolution or political process through the exclusive prism of Islam. According to such commentators, Muslims act in a certain way mainly because they are Muslims, not because they are Moroccans or Jordanians, blue-collared or self-employed, educated or illiterate, urbanites or peasant, straight or gay, young or old, Arabic speakers or native Berbers, and of course their class background and financial resources are meaningless compared with their religious affiliation. Those analysts share one thing in common with the Jihadis, they believe Islam provides all the answers. The Arab Revolution: Ten Lessons From the Democratic Uprisisng

A man is born; his first years go by in obscurity amid the pleasures or hardships of childhood. He grows up; then comes the beginning of manhood; finally society's gates open to welcome him; he comes into contact with his fellows. For the first time he is scrutinized and the seeds of the vices and virtues of his maturity are thought to be observed forming in him. This is, if I am not mistaken, a singular error. Step back in time; look closely at the child in the very arms of his mother; see the external world reflected for the first time in the yet unclear mirror of his understanding; study the first examples which strike his eyes; listen to the first word which arouse with him the slumbering power of thought; watch the first struggles which he has to undergo; only then will you comprehend the source of the prejudices, the habits, and the passions which are to rule his life.

America is an idea more than anything. Promising ideas need to be nurtured, not battered.

Americans see democracy as a remedy for all ills-to be taken three times daily like prescription medicine. It works for them. Ergo - it should work for the world. What America naïvely forgets is that for democracy to function, most of a populace must have something personally that is worth preserving.

Americans stand at a crossroads in 2018. A choice between neo-fascism or the freedom of democracy. Do you choose freedom?

All the Wallander books are basically a discussion on the relationship between democracy and the system of justice.

A man who doesn’t detest a bad government is a fool. And if there were such a thing as a good government in earth, it would be a great joy to serve it.

America had invented itself. It continued to invent itself as it went along. Sometimes its virtues made it the envy of the world. Sometimes it betrayed the very heart of its ideals. Sometimes the people dispensed with what was difficult or inconvenient to acknowledge. So the good people maintained the illusion of democracy and wrote another hymn to America. They sang loud enough to drown out dissent. They sang loud enough to overpower their own doubts. There were no plaques to commemorate mistakes. But the past didn’t forget. History was haunted by the ghosts of buried crimes, which required period exorcisms of truth. Actions had consequences.

Americans deify democracy in a way that allows for a dim awareness that they have, from time to time, stood in defiance of their God. But democracy is a forgiving God and America's heresies—torture, theft, enslavement—are so common among individuals and nations that none can declare themselves immune.

Americans need to continue to develop broad-based movements that reject the established political parties and rethink the social formations necessary to bring about a radical democracy. We see this in the Black Lives Matter movement as well as in a range of other movements that are resisting corporate money in politics, the widespread destruction of the environment, nuclear war and the mass incarceration state.

America operates under the notion of equality before the law. Basic fairness is an article of faith. We may not agree on everything all of the time, but we select our leaders together. And when we don’t want them anymore, we get rid of them.

America's misguided democratic idealism would give all power to "the people" - our favorite rag doll and mock idol. But there is no power in the people, and no "people power." Furthermore, the peoples' victories at the end of the Cold War (in Eastern Europe) did not play out as advertised. And yet, the democratic mythology continues to prevail. Modern man refuses to see politics for what it is. The world believes a lie, as it usually does. At present it is fashionable to believe that democracy is the final solution of mankind's political problems, or failing in that belief, men blame America for the ills of the world. America is said to be the "lone superpower" as the world is gradually turned against her. But consider the terrible helplessness of the United States during the September 11 attacks - now mirrored in the inept diplomacy and misguided military strategy of an administration at war with its own intelligence services, incapable of preventing future terrorist attacks because it will not stand against the populace's hedonistic impulses.

Americans always want to elect a temporary dictator, but there is no such thing.

A moral foreign policy means your positions on certain matters are clear no matter what, and that you won't forget about them when it's convenient.

A multi-party system is a system in which multiple political parties run for national election thus turning it into a multi-party chaos.

Anarşistler demokratik bir devlet taraftarı değildirler, ancak demokratik bir toplum, bir “yaşam tarzı” olarak demokrasinin tarafında olabilirler. Anarşizm devletin olmadığı bir demokrasidir.

A nation with minimum laws will have maximum laughter.

A million zeros joined together do not, unfortunately, add up to one. Ultimately everything depends on the quality of the individual, but our fatally shortsighted age thinks only in terms of large numbers and mass organizations, though one would think that the world had seen more than enough of what a well-disciplined mob can do in the hands of a single madman. Unfortunately, this realization does not seem to have penetrated very far - and our blindness is extremely dangerous.

America's libraries are the fruits of a great democracy. They exist because we believe that memory and truth are important. They exists because we believe that information an knowledge are not the exclusive domain of a certain type or class of person but rather the province of all who seek to learn. A democratic society holds these institutions in high regard.