Best 3411 quotes in «democracy quotes» category

Gone is any mention of American exceptionalism. I happen to believe that twice, three times in the 20th century, the United States saved Western democracy, both World War - both World Wars and the Cold War.

Good and just society is neither the thesis of capitalism nor the antithesis of communism, but a socially conscious democracy which reconciles the truths of individualism and collectivism.

Government by blackmail is incompatible with democracy.

Governments, whether they're dictatorships or democracies, reflect the people. When the people get fed up, they throw them out.

Great nations of the world are moving toward democracy.

Greece gave democracy to the rest of the world.

Greece isn't a democracy now it's run through a troika - three foreign officials that fly into Athens airport and tell the Greeks what they can and can't do.

Greece is the mother of democracy and South Africa is its youngest daughter

growth requires purposeful division. Responsible dissent is the essence of democracy.

[Hamas] thought that if you go to elections you become a democrat for the rest of your life. They think that democracy is limited to one day in four years.

Having a vote once every four years is not the same thing as democracy.

Having lived through the transition from totalitarianism, I am acutely mindful of the need to never take for granted the basic freedoms of thought, expression and belief that democracy brings.

Having gathered all power to itself, [the State] has become the sole focus of all conflict, and it must construct totalitarian defences to match its total exposure.

He [Deng Xiaoping] said that he did not understand why we failed to grasp that the alternative was not democracy, but total chaos and risking all the reforms that had been achieved.

Here's to the day when the complete works of Leon Trotsky are published and widely distributed in the Soviet Union. On that day the USSR will have achieved democracy!

He [Mencken] was an autodidact, with all the misplaced confidence and all the astonishing gaps that characterize that breed. Not many of us would venture to write a book about democracy without ever having read de Tocqueville, nor embark on a translation of Nietzsche with only a sketchy knowledge of German.

Here's what I don't think works: An economic system that was founded in the 16th century and another that was founded in the 19th century. I'm tired of this discussion of capitalism and socialism; we live in the 21st century, we need an economic system that has democracy as its underpinnings and an ethical code.

He [Louis Brandais] did believe in the states famously as laboratories of democracy, to use that resonant phrase that Tea Party and conservative libertarians have embraced today because he loves state experimentation.

He that accepts protection, stipulates obedience.

He who allows oppression shares the crime.

He who attacks the fundamentals of the American broadcasting industry attacks democracy itself.

History is fables agreed upon.

He who fox-like got his rank, Is wolf-like in his office.

He who attempts to control another is a governor, an aggressor, an invader; and the nature of such invasion is not changed, whether it is made by one man upon another man ... or by all other men upon one man, after the manner of a modern democracy.

Hong Kong is not just a global financial center. It's also a place with a lot of teens and youth who love freedom, democracy, and human rights.

Honesty in politics is the result of strength; hypocrisy is the result of weakness.

How do we preserve our civil rights, our traditions as a liberal democracy, in a time when government power is expanding and is more and more difficult to check?

How can we be enemies when there is so much that pulls us together? But in general I found that I had to work with each one of my foreign colleagues in a way that was consistent with their system. Some are democracies, some are not.

How do we protect the soul of democracy against bad theology in service of an imperial state?

How do you deliver democracy to a country? You don't do it down the barrel of a gun. That's not how you deliver it.

How do you have a democratic empire, how do you have an imperial foreign policy built on a democracy polity. It's like some sort of strange mythical beast that's part lion, part dragon. You know at the bottom is a democracy, and then it's an imperial power around the world.

However, I must say that I am very happy to see that we have such a positive result for our first referendum in our history and that gives me more confidence in Taiwan's democracy.

However, democracy cannot be defined as the existence of parliaments and elections alone.

How is it possible that a process can be democratic when it comes by way of money? If there is money then it can be elected a senator, it can be elected a representative. Do you know how much it cost to be elected president of the United States? The amount has reached, billions of dollars, 2 billion, 3 billion, 4 billion dollars, that's how much a presidential campaign costs. How much does a senatorial campaign cost? It costs 80 to 90 million dollars; or the campaign of a representative, 40 to 50 million. Is that really a democracy?

How have relations with Iran and Belarus benefited Venezuela? We are interested in countries that have democracies, that respect human rights, that we have an affinity with. What affinity do we have with Iran?

How many black holes have we been up close and personal with?" Kosta countered. "All sorts of odd things happen near the event horizon, from huge tidal forces to variations in time. Personally, I'm voting on it having to do with gravity, either a polarization of the fields themselves or else something related to the time differential." I didn't know physics had become a democracy," Hanan murmered.

How often have we seen politicians take a principle position only to give it up three days later? That is what makes democracy so fascinating.

How do we get democracy at the international level? That's our problem. and it's essentially the same problem people faced in the 18th Century when they tried to get democracy nationally. Now we need it internationally.

Humor can help you to disagree without being disagreeable. The key in democracy is not necessarily that we agree, but that we participate....Despite all the heavy problems- domestic and international- there is humor. Humor transcends partisanship.

How young people are represented betrays a great deal about what is increasingly new about the economic, social, cultural and political constitution of American society and its growing disinvestment in young people, the social state and democracy itself.

Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right.

Human Beings are just good enough to make democracy possible...just bad enough to make it neccessary.

I actually have to consciously stay away from CNN and MSNBC because it will rot my brain and start having me agree with them as they have an argument between the right and the far right while making it seem they are righteous torch-bearers for democracy. Corporate media is insidiously numbing!

I actually did a quick survey of how caste plays out in contemporary India. The idea that democracy and development have in some ways eroded caste turned out not to be the case, that it has in fact been entrenched and modernised.

I am a democrat only on principle, not by instinct, nobody is that. Doubtless some people say they are, but this world is grievously given to lying.

I always assume that democracy is the only good form of government, quite frankly, and democracy is always to be preferred

I also know that there have been many times in our history when the proximity of an election has induced exactly the kind of leadership and consensus-building that produce progress in our democracy.

I am all in favour of democracy in Iraq.

I am a firm believer in the importance of democracy, not only as the ultimate goal, but also as an essential part of the process.

I am and will remain the president of all Cameroonians without exception, and the great winner in these elections is democracy