Democracies Have Quotes

Constitutional democracy has created astonishing and apparently irreversible social progress. All we're interested in is talking about when government doesn't work. ~ Tony Kushner

Globally, democracies have also acted in ways that suggest an outright renunciation of their principles at home. ~ Nayef Al-Rodhan

Democracy has at least one merit, namely that a Member of Parliament cannot be stupider than his constituents, for the more stupid he is, the more stupid they were to elect him. ~ Bertrand Russell

The boundaries of democracy have to be widened so as to include economic equality also. This is the great revolution through which we are all passing. ~ Jawaharlal Nehru

Everybody's for democracy in principle. It's only in practice that the thing gives rise to stiff objections. ~ Meg Greenfield

No democracy has ever long survived the failure of its adherents to be ready to die for it. My own conviction is this, the people must either go on or go under. ~ David Lloyd George

Democracy has many definitions, but what's in it for me is not an element of any of them. ~ Jeff Cooper

Capitalism under democracy has a further advantage: its enemies, even when it is attacked, are scattered and weak, and it is usually easily able to array one half of them against the other half, and thus dispose of both. ~ H.L. Mencken

Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe because in the long run stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty ... The global wave of democracy has barely reached the Arab states. For too long, many people in that region have been victims and subjects. They deserve to be active citizens. ~ George W. Bush

With few exceptions, democracy has not brought good government to new developing countries ... What Asians value may not necessarily be what Americans or Europeans value. Westerners value the freedoms and liberties of the individual. As an Asian of Chinese cultural backround, my values are for a government which is honest, effective and efficient. ~ Lee Kuan Yew

All deductions having been made, democracy has done less harm, and more good, than any other form of government. It gave to human existence a zest and camaraderie that outweighed its pitfalls and defects. It gave to thought and science and enterprise the freedom essential to their operation and growth. It broke down the walls of privilege and class, and in each generation it raised up ability from every rank and place. ~ Will Durant

Democracy has two excesses to avoid: the spirit of inequality, which leads to an aristocracy, or to the government of a single individual; and the spirit of extreme equality, which conducts it to despotism, as the despotism of a single individual finishes by conquest. ~ Baron De Montesquieu

Advocating democracy has, by other people, often been taken as a form of imperialism, and not without some justification. So the important thing in a democracy is that it doesn't necessarily have to agree with what America's interests are, and it doesn't necessarily have to be serving American interests. ~ George Soros

The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppose. ~ Frederick Douglass

Our democracy has been around far longer than European democracy. ~ Hillary Clinton

There's no doubt that in the last two to three decades, American democracy has been hacked. It was based on the regular harvesting of the wisdom of crowds, but now big sources of special interest money are able to prevent the passage of almost any meaningful reform that's aimed at the public interest. ~ Al Gore

Between a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos. ~ John Marshall

Elections belong to the people. It's their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters. ~ Abraham Lincoln

We in the United States are very often - since we are a democracy and we have national interests, we've often made the mistake that a democracy has to adopt America's interests, and that is a contradiction because a democracy basically is people deciding what their interests are. ~ George Soros

Though editorialists at The New York Times and The Washington Post still don't get it, most Democrats in Congress finally do: Today's trade disputes are no longer mostly about tariffs, quotas, or free entry of goods. They are about the ground rules for capitalism. Are there to be only property rights? What about the other rights that liberal democracies have fought for since the 1880s? ~ Robert Kuttner

The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment. ~ Robert Maynard Hutchins

Liberalism and Western-style democracy have not been able to help realize the ideals of humanity. Today, these two concepts have failed. Those with insight can already hear the sounds of the shattering and fall of the ideology and thoughts of the liberal democratic systems ... Whether we like it or not, the world is gravitating towards faith in the Almighty and justice and the will of God will prevail over all things. ~ Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Democracy has many enemies, and the terrorist is only one of them. ~ Paul Johnson

For our democracy has been marred by imperialism, and it has been enlightened only by individual and sporadic efforts at freedom. ~ Pearl S. Buck

Down to the present day the luminous image of democracy has often served as a pretext for the most undemocratic actions. ~ Randal Marlin

Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers. ~ Aristotle.

Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

It took six weeks of debate in the Senate to get the Arms Embargo Law repealed
and we face other delays during the present session because most of the Members of the Congress are thinking in terms of next Autumn's election. However, that is one of the prices that we who live in democracies have to pay. It is, however, worth paying, if all of us can avoid the type of government under which the unfortunate population of Germany and Russia must exist. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

Before we get too depressed about the state of our politics, let's remember our history ... Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. What is amazing, is that despite all the conflict, our experiment in democracy has worked better than any form of government on earth ~ Barack Obama

It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity. ~ Alexander Hamilton

It is a law of governance that democracies have to spend themselves dizzy. Citizens of democracies can, after all, tell their government to give them things. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

When free discussion is denied, hardening of the arteries of democracy has set in, free institutions are but a lifeless form, and the death of the republic is at hand. ~ William Randolph Hearst

The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians. ~ Benjamin Disraeli

Acts of anti-Semitism in countries throughout the world, including some of the world's strongest democracies, have increased significantly in frequency and scope over the last several years. ~ Tim Holden

Democracy is necessary to peace and to undermining the forces of terrorism. ~ Benazir Bhutto

The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeois. ~ Gustave Flaubert

Democracy and religion stand or fall together. Where democracy has been destroyed, religion has been doomed. Where religion has been trampled down, democracy has ceased to exist ... Tyrants have come and have had their day and then have passed while religion has survived them all. ~ Herbert H. Lehman

The 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance. The growth of democracy; the growth of corporate power; and the growth of corporate propaganda against democracy. ~ Alex Carey

I'm sort of always trying to reinvent and recreate a better way of being, because, you know, democracy has been "the worst of all political systems except for all the rest." So I think we have a lot of room to grow and be a better society, and it's a constant battle. It's an exciting opportunity to be active. ~ Adrian Grenier

American democracy has been hacked. ~ Al Gore

So much of democracy is built on antagonism. It institutionalizes a certain kind of antagonism. This is not to say that we shouldn't have any democracy, but the fact is that democracy has hardened political identities and made them more violent. ~ Pankaj Mishra

The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections. ~ John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

The paradox of American democracy has been that its slogan of equal opportunity has meant, often, equal opportunity to get power over your fellows. ~ Mary Parker Follett

In the strict sense of the term, a true democracy has never existed, and never will exist. It is against natural order that the great number should govern and that the few should be governed. ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau

For over a century, popular struggles in the democracies have used the nation-state to temper raw capitalism. The power of voters has offset the power of capital. But as national barriers have come down in the name of freer commerce, so has the capacity of governments to manage capitalism in a broad public interest. So the real issue is not "trade" but democratic governance. ~ Robert Kuttner

Although Christianity has never been the guarantee of a democratic state anywhere in the world, no democracy has ever thrived successfully for any period of time outside of Christian influence. ~ Theodore White

Majorities can be wrong, majorities can overrule rights of minorities. If majorities ruled, we could still have slavery. 80% of the population once enslaved 20% of the population. While run by majority rule that is ok. That is very flawed notion of what democracy is. Democracy has to take into account several things - proportionate requirements of people, not just needs of the majority, but also needs of the minority. Majority, especially in societies where the media manipulates public opinion, can be totally wrong and evil. People have to act according to conscience and not by majority vote. ~ Howard Zinn

Democracy has turned out to be not majority rule but rule by well-organized and well-connected minority groups who steal from the majority. ~ Llewellyn Rockwell

Where freedom of religion has been attacked, the attack has come from sources opposed to democracy. Where democracy has been overthrown, the spirit of free worship has disappeared. And where religion and democracy have vanished, good faith and reason in international affairs have given way to strident ambition and brute force. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

Democracies have been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death. ~ James Madison

Democracy is the worship of jackals by jackasses. ~ H.L. Mencken

There are ways to pursue political change. In a democracy, it's through the ballot box. There are other ways, and many democracies have many different systems of democracy. ~ Richard Armitage

That kind of skeptical questioning, don't accept what authority tells you -attitude of science- is also nearly identical to the attitude of mind necessary for a functioning democracy. Science and democracy have very consonant values and approaches, and I don't think you can have one without the other. ~ Carl Sagan

Democracy is beautiful in theory; in practice it is a fallacy. ~ Benito Mussolini

As long as the differences and diversities of mankind exist, democracy must allow for compromise, for accommodation, and for the recognition of differences. ~ Eugene McCarthy

Democracy is four wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. ~ Ambrose Bierce

Democracies have to be careful that they do not become so process-driven. ~ Hillary Clinton

Democracy consists of choosing your dictators, after they've told you what you think it is you want to hear. ~ Alan Coren

I understand democracy as something that gives the weak the same chance as the strong. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Democracy, by its very nature, can't be imposed on people. Democracy has to be the people deciding for themselves. ~ George Soros

Take not from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. ~ Thomas Jefferson

The leading student of business propaganda, Australian social scientist Alex Carey, argues persuasively that the 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy. ~ Noam Chomsky

Democracy has not failed; the intelligence of the race has failed before the problems the race has raised ~ Robert M. Hutchins

The war waged against terror since September 11 puts a strain on democracy itself, because it is mostly waged in secret, using means that are at the edge of both law and morality. Yet democracies have shown themselves capable of keeping the secret exercise of power under control. ~ Michael Ignatieff

Brothers and sisters, our democracy has been hijacked. Brothers and sisters, all electoral freedoms in this country are over so long as it's controlled by corporations. Brothers and sisters, we are not going to allow these streets to be taken over by the Democrats or the Republicans. Because it's all of us who have built this city, and we can tear it down unless they give us what we need. ~ Zack De La Rocha

Democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largesse out of the public treasure. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefit from the public treasury, with the result that democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy, always to be followed by a dictatorship, and then a monarchy. ~ Alexander Fraser Tytler

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard. ~ H.L. Mencken

America is strong because its journalism is strong. That's how democracies work. They're only as good as the quality of the information that the public possesses. And that is where we come in. ~ Scott Pelley

The unthinking glorification of digital activism makes its practitioners confuse priorities with capabilities. Getting people onto the streets, which may indeed become easier with modern communication tools, is usually the last stage of a protest movement, in both democracies and autocracies. One cannot start with protests and think of political demands and further steps later on. There are real dangers to substituting startegic and long-term action with spontaneous street marches. ~ Evgeny Morozov

Why should the Negroes ever fight against the only nations of the world where racial discrimination is prohibited, and where the people can live freely? Never! I can assure you, they will never fight against either the Soviet Union or the peoples' democracies. ~ Paul Robeson

As the 20th century ended, there were around 120 democracies in the world - and I can assure you more are on the way. ~ George W. Bush

Democracy in crime was turning out no different from democracies everywhere: a sublime idea in theory, soiled by the reality that deep down nobody really believes that all men are created equal. ~ Steve Toltz

Democracies do not go to war. War is not our expression of thought. ~ Asif Ali Zardari

Democracies can't handle austerity measures very well. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

International law is a fiction abused callously, or ignored ruthlessly, by those nations that, unlike the Western democracies, never took it seriously in the first place. ~ Irving Kristol

For countries to succeed, for democracies to succeed, the women and men in those countries need to be free. Women and men need to know their rights. ~ Laura Bush

It has been hard to muster the resources to support fledgling democracies- or to help the world's most desperate - the AIDS orphan in Uganda, the refugee fleeing Zimbabwe, the young woman who has been trafficked into the sex trade in Southeast Asia; the world's poorest in Haiti. Yet this assistance - together with the compassionate works of private charities - people of conscience and people of faith - has shown the soul of our country. ~ Condoleezza Rice

The purpose cannot be creating self-styled democracies, but rather encouraging steps that are conducive to establishing democratic rule at universal standards. Obviously, this would be a formidable journey. ~ Recep Tayyip Erdogan

In every well-governed state wealth is a sacred thing; in democracies it is the only sacred thing. ~ Anatole France

Asia's governments come in two broad varieties: young, fragile democracies - and older, fragile authoritarian regimes. ~ Paul Samuelson

War cannot eliminate differing ideas and viewpoints, and partisans of the defeated side do not disappear. Though subjugated, they become a sizable political constituency in the postwar period. A dictator may be able to repress them, and in democracies a numerical majority may outvote them, but neither can change their thoughts. Since civil wars are, by nature, deep and fundamental conflicts, the competition between the views that led to war is likely to resurface. The defeated side may be chastened or subdued, but its values and ways of seeing the world reappear, in some form, in politics [107]. ~ Paul D. Escott

As the histories of ancient and modern democracies illustrate, the pressure of political movement in times of war, civil commotion, or general anxiety pushes in the direction of authority, not away from it. ~ Robert Heilbroner

The genius of democracies is seen not only in the great number of new words introduced but even more in the new ideas they express. ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

Both fascism and communism [in the 20th Century] were responses to globalization: to the real and perceived inequalities it created, and apparent helplessness of the democracies in addressing them. Fascists rejected reason in the name of will, denying objective truth in favor of a glorious myth articulated by leaders who claimed to give voice to the people. They put a face on on globalization, arguing that its complex challenges were the result of a conspiracy against the nation. ~ Timothy Snyder

We all know how 'modern democracies take loaves from the wealthy.' It's the slipups in the 'pass them out to the poor' department that inspire a study of Economics. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

The truth then is, that the Russian Comintern is still confessedly engaged in endeavoring to foment war in order to facilitate revolution, and that one of its chief organizers, Lozovsky, has been installed as principal adviser to Molotov ... A few months ago he wrote in the French publication, L Vie Ouvriere ... that his chief aim in life is the overthrow of the existing order in the great Democracies. ~ Denis Fahey

Tocqueville already explained, more than 150 years ago, that democracies are short-sighted and are not systems well adapted to long-term challenges. He explained perfectly how democracies bring individualism and mass consumption. Democracies can respond to immediate threats, like war. But do democracies exist that are capable of dealing with an insidious but irreversible danger? This is an open question. ~ Guillaume Faye

The great multinationals are unwilling to face the moral and economic contradictions of their own behavior - producing in low-wage dictatorships and selling to high-wage democracies. Indeed, the striking quality about global enterprises is how easily free-market capitalism puts aside its supposed values in order to do business. The conditions of human freedom do not matter to them so long as the market demand is robust. The absence of freedom, if anything, lends order and efficiency to their operations. ~ William Greider

Democracies are turbulent. . . . Aristocracies are better adapted for peace and order, and accordingly were most admired by ancient writers; but they are jealous and oppressive. ~ David Hume

I've often thought that the gauntlet of American politics is more individualistic, more expensive, more unpredictable than in many other democracies. ~ Hillary Clinton

Local prohibitions cannot block advances in military and commercial technology ... Democratic movements for local restraint can only restrain the world's democracies, not the world as a whole. ~ K. Eric Drexler

Civilization is revving itself into a pathologically short attention span. The trend might be coming from the acceleration of technology, the short-horizon perspective of market-driven economics, the next-election perspective of democracies, or the distractions of personal multitasking. All are on the increase. Some sort of balancing corrective to the short-sightedness is needed - some mechanism or myth that encourages the long view and the taking of long-term responsibility, where "the long term" is measured at least in centuries. ~ Stewart Brand

Inequality is the deepest of problems, built into the structure of reality itself, and will not be solved by the presumptuous, ideology-inspiring retooling of the rare free, stable and productive democracies of the world. ~ Jordan B. Peterson

Only two countries in this hemisphere are not democratic, but many countries in both Central and South America, and in the Caribbean, are really fragile democracies. ~ Warren Christopher

It is no accident that the rise of so many democracies took place in a time when the world's most influential nation was itself a democracy. ~ George W. Bush

Half a world away nations that once lived under oppression and tyranny are now budding democracies due in large part to America 's leadership and the sacrifices of our military. ~ Bob Riley

Democracies are indeed slow to make war, but once embarked upon a martial venture are equally slow to make peace and reluctant to make a tolerable, rather than a vindictive, peace. ~ Reinhold Niebuhr

To balance China, the democracies will need new friends - and India with its fast-growing economy, youthful population, and democratic politics seems the obvious candidate. ~ David Frum

Polarization can destroy democratic norms. When socioeconomic, racial, or religious differences give rise to extreme partisanship, in which societies sort themselves into political camps whose worldviews are not just different but mutually exclusive, toleration becomes harder to sustain. Some polarization is healthy - even necessary - for democracy. And indeed, the historical experience of democracies in Western Europe shows us that norms can be sustained even where parties are separated by considerable ideological differences. But when societies grow so deeply divided that parties become wedded to incompatible worldviews, and especially when their members are so socially segregated that they rarely interact, stable partisan rivalries eventually give way to perceptions of mutual threat. As mutual toleration disappears, politicians grow tempted to abandon forbearance and try to win at all costs. This may encourage the rise of antisystem groups that reject democracy's rules altogether. When that happens, democracy is in trouble. ~ Steven Levitsky