Best 3411 quotes in «democracy quotes» category

Why should you desire to compel others; why should you seek to have power— that evil, bitter, mocking thing, which has been from of old, as it is today, the sorrow and curse of the world—over your fellow-men and fellow-women? Why should you desire to take from any man or woman their own will and intelligence, their free choice, their own self-guidance, their inalienable rights over themselves; why should you desire to make of them mere tools and instruments for your own advantage and interest; why should you desire to compel them to serve and follow your opinions instead of their own; why should you deny in them the soul—that suffers so deeply from all constraint—and treat them as a sheet of blank paper upon which you may write your own will and desires, of whatever kind they may happen to be? Who gave you the right, from where do you pretend to have received it, to degrade other men and women from their own true rank as human beings, taking from them their will, their conscience, and intelligence—in a word, all the best and highest part of their nature—turning them into mere empty worthless shells, mere shadows of the true man and women, mere counters in the game you are mad enough to play, and just because you are more numerous or stronger than they, to treat them as if they belonged not to themselves, but to you? Can you believe that good will ever come by morally and spiritually degrading your fellow-men? What happy and safe and permanent form of society can you hope to build on this pitiful plan of subjecting others, or being yourselves subjected by them?

Wie es im Zeitalter der Könige naiv gewesen wäre zu glauben, dass der erstgeborene Königssohn der zum Herrschen Geeignetste wäre, so ist es in unserer zeit naiv zu glauben, dass der demokratisch gewählte Machthaber der Geeignetste sein wird. Die Nachfolgeregelung ist kein Rezept für die Bestimmung des besten Machthabers, sie ist ein Rezept für die Legitimierung dieser oder jener Person und somit für die Vermeidung von Bürgerkriegen. Die Wählerschaft - der Demos - glaubt, es sei ihre Aufgabe, den Besten auszuwählen, doch in Wahrheit ist ihre Aufgabe viel schlichter: einen Mann zu salben [...], gleichgültig welchen.

Wir können in diesem Land entweder eine Demokratie haben oder wir können großen Wohlstand haben, der in den Händen weniger konzentriert liegt, aber wir können nicht beides haben.

Wir sind das Volk!" Dieser Satz hat uns gelehrt, dass wir, wenn wir unserer Sehnsucht glauben und ihr vertrauen, die Angst verlieren können. Eine Angst, die willfährige Dienerin jeder Art von nicht legitimierter Herrschaft ist, die uns ohnmächtig macht, die uns bindet. In dem Augenblick aber, in dem wir unsere Angst als Angst benennen und Anpassung und Angst als Geschwisterkinder erkennen, sind wir möglicherweise bereit zu erproben: Können wir auch ohne sie leben? In genau diesem Augenblick wachsen uns jene Kräfte zu, die eine ganze Gesellschaft verändern können.

With a [democratic] government anyone in principle can become a member of the ruling class or even the supreme power. The distinction between the rulers and the ruled as well as the class consciousness of the ruled become blurred. The illusion even arises that the distinction no longer exists: that with a public government no one is ruled by anyone, but everyone instead rules himself. Accordingly, public resistance against government power is systematically weakened. While exploitation and expropriation before might have appeared plainly oppressive and evil to the public, they seem much less so, mankind being what it is, once anyone may freely enter the ranks of those who are at the receiving end. Consequently, [exploitation will increase], whether openly in the form of higher taxes or discretely as increased governmental money “creation” (inflation) or legislative regulation.

With drug use related harms, explanatory models are often presented as predictive tools, even though they ‘are [rarely if ever] predictive of consequent behavior’ or outcomes. Hence, we feel confident in asserting at outset, that prohibition based approaches in drug policy lack a sound basis in empirical research (despite sounding logical, i.e. remove drugs or the means of their production and less drugs will be available to users, thus minimising or eliminating harm), and are not animated by well-defined goals, goals that are not only consistent with the ethical and humanitarian aims of public health policy in general, but also with the fundamental principles of democracy) such as empowering or enabling those best placed to act, but by beliefs, assumptions, hypotheses and expectations.

Without a sharp turnaround toward democracy and equality in the United States, Europe will be virtually alone in its commitment to social democracy. The pressures of low-wage immigrant labor, cheap imports from Eastern Europe and Asia, and free-market practices of governments are already threatening once secure areas of employment and causing right-wing populism to pop up in various Western European countries. Surprising numbers of middle-class and working-class voters have supported ultranationalist, neofascist parties throughout Europe because, like white male workers in the United States, they see their status slipping.

Without free speech one cannot claim other liberties, or defend them when they are attacked. Without free speech one cannot have a democratic process, which requires the statement and testing of policy proposals and party platforms. Without free speech one cannot have a due process at law, in which one can defend oneself, accuse, collect and examine evidence, make a case or refute one. Without free speech there cannot be genuine education and research, enquiry, debate, exchange of information, challenges to falsehood, questioning of governments, proposal and examination of opinion. Without free speech there cannot be a free press, which...is necessary...as one of the two essential estates of a free society (the other being an independent judiciary).

Without the continued existence of the democratic system and of publicly funded education and research, however, most current teachers and intellectuals would be unemployed or their income would fall to a small fraction of its present level. Instead of researching the syntax of Ebonics, the love life of mosquitoes, or the relationship between poverty and crime for $100 grand a year, they would research the science of potato growing or the technology of gas pump operation for $20 grand.

With the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870, “race, color, or previous condition of servitude” could no longer be used to deny citizens the right to vote (though, in practice, they often were).7 The direct election of senators was established by the Seventeenth Amendment in 1912.8 Finally, the Nineteenth Amendment, passed in 1920, decreed that “the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged on account of sex.

Wo ein Klima der Überwachung und Bespitzelung herrscht, kann ein freier und offener demokratischer Prozess nicht stattfinden.

Wouldn't it be more of a free country," persisted Francie "if we could ride in them free?" "No." "Why?" "Because that would be Socialism," concluded Johnny triumphantly, "and we don't want that over here." "Why?" "Because we got democracy and that's the best thing there is," clinched Johnny.

Yes, our country has its shortcomings, but there's no moral equivalency between democracy and totalitarianism…There's no moral equivalency between propaganda and the truth.

Yet in his own estimate, one theme in particular dominated all others: the growing tyranny of the majority, the ever-increasing and most formidable barriers raised by the majority around the free expression of opinion, and, as a result, the frightening oneness of American thinking, the absence of eccentricity and divergence from the norm. A perfect liberty of the Mind exists in America, said Tocqueville, just as long as the sovereign majority has yet to decide its course. But once the majority has made up its mind, then all contrary thought must cease, and all controversy must be abandoned, not at the risk of death or physical punishment, but rather at the more subtle and more intolerable pain of ostracism, of being shunned by one's fellows, of being rejected by society. Throughout history kings and princely rulers had sought without success to control human thought, that most elusive and invisible power of all. Yet where absolute monarchs had failed, democracy succeeds, for the strength of the majority is unlimited and all pervasive, and the doctrines of equality and majority rule have substituted for the tyranny of the few over the many the more absolute, imperious and widely accepted tyranny of the many over the few.

you call democracy freedom. I call it corporation.

You find nothing like that among humans. Yes, human groups may have distinct social systems, but these are not genetically determined, and they seldom endure for more than a few centuries. Think of twentieth-century Germans, for example. In less than a hundred years the Germans organised themselves into six very different systems: the Hohenzollern Empire, the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich, the German Democratic Republic (aka communist East Germany), the Federal Republic of Germany (aka West Germany), and finally democratic reunited Germany. Of course the Germans kept their language and their love of beer and bratwurst. But is there some unique German essence that distinguishes them from all other nations, and that has remained unchanged from Wilhelm II to Angela Merkel? And if you do come up with something, was it also there 1,000 years ago, or 5,000 years ago? The (unratified) Preamble of the European Constitution begins by stating that it draws inspiration ‘from the cultural, religious and humanist inheritance of Europe, from which “have developed the universal values of the inviolable and inalienable rights of the human person, democracy, equality, freedom and the rule of law’.3 This may easily give one the impression that European civilisation is defined by the values of human rights, democracy, equality and freedom. Countless speeches and documents draw a direct line from ancient Athenian democracy to the present-day EU, celebrating 2,500 years of European freedom and democracy. This is reminiscent of the proverbial blind man who takes hold of an elephant’s tail and concludes that an elephant is a kind of brush. Yes, democratic ideas have been part of European culture for centuries, but they were never the whole. For all its glory and impact, Athenian democracy was a half-hearted experiment that survived for barely 200 years in a small corner of the Balkans. If European civilisation for the past twenty-five centuries has been defined by democracy and human rights, what are we to make of Sparta and Julius Caesar, of the Crusaders and the conquistadores, of the Inquisition and the slave trade, of Louis XIV and Napoleon, of Hitler and Stalin? Were they all intruders from some foreign civilisation?

You can blame the politicians, the businessmen, the generals, the machine... But really, if you're looking to blame someone: blame me. I'm the American System. I'm the machine. That's the price of living in a democracy: we all gotta take the rap.

You can't start with a democracy. You have to work up through stuff like tyranny and monarchy first. That way people are so relieved when they get to democracy that they hang on to it.

You gotta remember the smartest thing the Congress did was to limit the voters in this country. Out of 3 1/2 to 4 million people, 200,000 voted. And that was true for a helluva long time, and the republic would have never survived if all the dummies had voted along with the intelligent people.

You don't have to believe in Gods of democracy. Vote them in!

You don't spread democracy with a barrel of a gun.

You're a part of the order if you're not against it.

You have to realize that modern power, is nothing but a concept in the mind of the one who’s under the power. And once you realize this, you realize that authority is indeed an illusion.

You might object that people were asked ‘What do you think?’ rather than ‘What do you feel?’, but this is a common misperception. Referendums and elections are always about human feelings, not about human rationality. If democracy were a matter of rational decision-making, there would be absolutely no reason to give all people equal voting rights – or perhaps any voting rights. There is ample evidence that some people are far more knowledgeable and rational than others, certainly when it comes to specific economic and political questions.

You need brains to be a great president, not to be a president.

You’re a raptor who sees all his people as defenseless little flit-wrens—and you’ll save them, if only they give up the fanciful notion that they can lead themselves, that they can protect themselves.” “You understand nothing.” “Meanwhile,” Sinjir says, really leaning into it now, “your opponent is a woman who wants to give democracy to the entirety of the galaxy. Freedom for all. Oppression for none.” “It’s naïve.” “It may be. But at this point, I’m going to side with her precious naïveté over your authoritarian bluster.

You know history better than I do, you've been teaching all your life. Without real opposition you get dictators down the line. Idi, Amin, Mugabe. No democracy without opposition.

Youths are the life blood of any nation.

You should not have too many people waiting on you, you should have to do most things for yourself. Hotel service is embarrassing. Maids, waiters, bellhops, porters and so forth are the most embarrassing people in the world for they continually remind you of inequities which we accept as the proper thing. The sight of an ancient woman, gasping and wheezing as she drags a heavy pail of water down a hotel corridor to mop up the mess of some drunken overprivileged guest, is one that sickens and weighs upon the heart and withers it with shame for this world in which it is not only tolerated but regarded as proof positive that the wheels of Democracy are functioning as they should without interference from above or below. Nobody should have to clean up anybody else’s mess in this world. It is terribly bad for both parties, but probably worse for the one receiving the service.

Youths are our arrows to the future.

You think an Air Gap is a defense? Sofacy, Stuxnet, Uroburos, AirHopper, BitWhisperer and ProjectSauron…enough said!

You've got to keep them pretty scared, because unless they're properly scared and frightened of all kinds of devils that are going destroy them from outside or inside or somewhere, they may start to think, which is very dangerous, because they're not competent to think.

You want Change, today we'll show you Change! Here's your democracy, your human rights, eat it, eat eat eat!

You want to know how to preserve democracy? WE must listen and understand each other, respect and have empathy for one another.

A country in which 42% of the population is totally misinformed is not a country where democracy is safe.

2014 Lok Sabha Elections is a battle between good governance agenda of the NDA versus the misgovernance and corruption of the UPA.

According to this view, democracy is a product of western culture, and it cannot be applied to the Middle East which has a different cultural, religious, sociological and historical background.

A central claim of the Bush administration's foreign policy is that the spread of democracy in the Middle East is the cure for terrorism.

A communist is like a crocodile: when it opens its mouth you cannot tell whether it is trying to smile or preparing to eat you up.

A constitutional democracy is in serious trouble if its citizenry does not have a certain degree of education and civic virtue.

Acts of terror have never brought down liberal democracies. Acts of parliament have closed a few.

A country that goes out of its way to imprison the innocent has no business preaching democracy to the world.

A democratic state is not proven by the welfare of the strong but by the welfare of the weak.

A democracy barely functions under the neoliberal system.

A democracy is ... accounted the meanest and worst of all forms of government.

A democracy is a government in the hands of men of low birth, no property, and vulgar employments.

A democracy is a state which recognizes the subjection of the minority to the majority, that is, an organization for the systematic use of violence by one class against the other, by one part of the population against another.

A democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience.

A democracy, the realistic observer is forced to conclude, is likely to be idealistic in its feelings about itself, but imperialistic about its practice.

A democracy which fails to concentrate authority in an emergency inevitably falls into such confusion that the ground is prepared for the rise of a dictator.