Best 3411 quotes in «democracy quotes» category

President Obama is currently on a week-long trip to Africa, where he will promote freedom, democracy, and economic opportunity. I guess he figured it hasn't worked here - so try it somewhere else.

Primarily, Warsaw and Brussels share the central basic values of the EU: human dignity, democracy, and the religious freedom of every single human being. We believe in these values.

Propaganda is to a democracy what violence is to a dictatorship.

[Proportional representation is a] device for defeating democracy, the principle of which was that the majority should rule, and for bringing faddists of all kinds into Parliament, and establishing groups and disintegrating parties.

Prosperity can't be just for CEOs and hedge fund managers. Democracy can't be just for billionaires and corporations. Prosperity and democracy are part of your basic bargain, too.

Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it. It is a corrective to the sluggishness of "the proper channels," a way of breaking through passages blocked by tradition and prejudice. It is disruptive and troublesome, but it is a necessary disruption, a healthy troublesome.

Protection of private property is a fundamental right protected in a strong democracy.

Public control of the political process requires public financing. The restoration of our American Democracy depends upon public financing.

Public opinion is presumptively an input to policy formation in a democracy because politicians respond to it or at least are believed to respond [to it].

Pure logic is the ruin of the spirit.

Putting it as strongly as I can, the failure to give free airtime for our political campaigns endangers our democracy.

Rather than a democracy, we increasingly have an elective dictatorship. People are merely permitted to choose who will violate the laws and the Constitution.

Reading builds the educated and informed electorate so vital to our democracy.

Reality has changed, and we changed with it. However, I never changed sides. I have always been on the side of justice, democracy and social equality.

Recent action in Syria and Palestine also tell us that the awakening voices of democracy in those regions are occurring, and that those in that region are able to pursue it without being stifled by terrorists that are despotic.

Reckless, outrageous and undignified behavior has become excused and countenanced as telling it like it is when it is actually just reckless, outrageous and undignified. And when such behavior emanates from the top of our government, it is something else. It is dangerous to a democracy.

Recreation is not a secondary concern for a democracy. It is a primary concern, for the kind of recreation a people make for themselves determines the kind of people they become and the kind of society they build.

Referendums are a democratic instrument, but so are decisions reached in a parliamentary democracy. I advise extreme caution when it comes to referendums. In Germany too.

Relative to the world's other advance democracies, Americans get off easy on tax day. Of the 35 richest countries, the U.S. ranks 32nd in total tax burden.

Religion is so frequently a source of confusion in political life, and so frequently dangerous to democracy, precisely because it introduces absolutes into the realm of relative values.

Remember, the Islamist view of democracy is: one man, one vote, one election, and that's it.

Republicans are pushing legislation forward that will improve the effectiveness of and bring more accountability to U.S. foreign assistance around the world and bring democracy even further into the light.

Remember one thing about democracy. We can have anything we want and at the same time, we always end up with exactly what we deserve.

Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.

Republics have a longer life and enjoy better fortune than principalities, because they can profit by their greater internal diversity. They are the better able to meet emergencies.

Representative democracy frequently manifests a disconnect between parliamentarians and the people, so that parliamentarians have agendas that do not correspond with the wishes of the electorate. This has led in many countries to apathy, cynicism and large-scale absenteeism in elections. What is needed is not only parliaments, but parliamentarians who genuinely represent the wishes of the electorate.

Revolution, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.

Retaliation is counter-poison and poison breeds more poison. The nectar of Love alone can destroy the poison of hate.

Revolution means democracy in today's world, not the enslavement of peoples to the corrupt and degrading horrors of totalitarianism

Right now, we don't have any leadership from White House to try to understand what our principal foreign adversary was doing to interfere with our elections, to, in effect, destabilize our democracy. So, I think this is - this should be of interest to any American.

Rights are not the language of democracy. Compromise is what democracy is about. Rights are the language of freedom, and are absolute because their role is to protect our liberty. By using the absolute power of freedom to accomplish reforms of democracy, we have undermined democracy and diminished our freedom.

. . . rock and roll, as I see it, is the ultimate populist art form, democracy in action, because it's true: anybody can do it.

Robert Moses wasn't elected to anything. We're taught that in a democracy power comes from being elected. He had more power than anyone, and he held it for 48 years

Rosa Luxemburg was - still is for me - a great personal and intellectual heroine. Her analysis of Leninism and capitalism and social democracy are all worth reading. I wouldn't consider anyone truly politically literate if they hadn't given her work at least some study.

Saddam's ouster will not necessarily lead to the same result, since Iraq lacks democratic traditions. Democracy doesn't just consist of holding elections.

Rumors are nearly as old as human history, but with the rise of the Internet, they have become ubiquitous. In fact we are now awash in them. False rumors are especially troublesome; they impose real damage on individuals and institutions, and they often resist correction. They can threaten careers, policies, public officials, and sometimes even democracy itself.

Rwanda is a democracy not a monarchy.

Russia can be either an empire or a democracy, but it cannot be both. . . . Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire.

Sadly, in this country - maybe this is in the history of the world, really - it's the urban experience versus the bucolic experience. And it is different, but therein lies the slow progression of democracy. We are a melting pot.

Scandals are the fertilizer of Western democracy.

Science is neither a single tradition, nor the best tradition there is, except for people who have become accustomed to its presence, its benefits and its disadvantages. In a democracy it should be separated from the state just as churches are now separated from the state.

Science and democracy are the right and left hands of what I'll refer to as the move from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom.

Science and policy-making thrive on challenge and questioning; they are vital to the health of inquiry and democracy.

Secularism for the Congress is merely a slogan while for the BJP it is an article of faith. Secularism is about votebank politics for the Congress, while it is about 'India first' for the BJP.

Secularism is not only in our constitution but also in our veins. We worship Mother Nature too. We believe that the world is our family.

Self-esteem is the basis of any democracy.

Seeing that the 97's are a democracy through and through, inevitably, some of these tons of songs I write will get vetoed. The first time that happened (and every time thereafter), I consoled myself with the thought that sooner or later I'd make a solo record

Self-government requires qualities of self-denial and restraint.

Serving democracy and nourishing the common good is, for the media, something that requires not only attacking corrupt secrecies in a society, but also defending non-corrupt communication.

Silicon Valley tends to believe in the individual who creates a small group and does something big. Democracy is always frustrating, but it creates a society that, for example, allows us to invest in each other's kids, to have public education, to have both a greater society and individual freedom for creating businesses.