Democracy Fails Quotes

It was not, however, to these Fascist groups, numerically unimportant as they were, that the Third Republic owed its collapse. On the contrary, the plain, if paradoxical, truth is that their influence was never so slight as at the moment when the collapse actually took place. What made France fall was the fact that she had no more true Dreyfusards, no one who believed that democracy and freedom, equality and justice could any longer be defended or realized under the republic. ~ Hannah Arendt

Lincoln's reference to government of the people, by the people, for the people is a generally satisfactory definition of democracy. I say generally because when it comes to fair and workable details, democracy fails to completely meet the criteria enunciated by Lincoln by a rather wide margin. ~ George Aiken

And that brings me to my definition of power, which is simply this: the capacity to make others do what you would have them do. It sounds menacing, doesn't it? We don't like to talk about power. We find it scary. We find it somehow evil. We feel uncomfortable naming it. In the culture and mythology of democracy, power resides with the people. ~ Eric Liu

[A]s long as individuals are compelled to rent themselves on the market to those who are willing to hire them, as long as their role in production is simply that of ancillary tools, then there are striking elements of coercion and oppression that make talk of democracy very limited, if meaningful. ~ Noam Chomsky

Indonesia is the world's third-largest democracy. And we also have the world's largest Muslim population. This demonstrates that democracy and Islam are not incompatible. Terrorism is not associated with any religion. ~ Joko Widodo

If you had said to anyone in 1945, at the end of the Second World War with the continent it ruins, that you could have a European Union of 28 member states stretching from Portugal in the West to Estonia in the East, all of them more-or-less liberal democracies - they wouldn't have believed you. ~ Timothy Garton Ash

Well, I've got three things working against me before I even
walk into the room:
1. I'm the last speaker of the day. The fans are tired and a little
burned out.
2. I'm following Michael Dorn and Marina Sirtis. They do conventions
together all the time, have a set routine that never
fails, and the fans adore them.
3. I was Wesley Crusher. ~ Wil Wheaton

The case for democracy is not esthetic. ~ George Will

It is not enough for a population or a section of the population to have Christian faith and be docile to the ministers of religion in order to be in a position properly to judge political matters. If this population has no political experience, no taste for seeing clearly for itself nor a tradition of initiative and critical judgment, its position with respect to politics grows more complicated, for nothing is easier for political counterfeiters than to exploit good principles for purposes of deception, and nothing is more disastrous than good principles badly applied. And moreover nothing is easier for human weakness than to merge religion with prejudices of race, family or class, collective hatreds, passions of a clan and political phantoms which compensate for the rigors of individual discipline in a pious but insufficiently purified soul. Politics deal with matters and interests of the world and they depend upon passions natural to man and upon reason. But the point I wish to make here is that without goodness, love and charity, all that is best in us - even divine faith, but passions and reason much more so - turns in our hands to an unhappy use. The point is that right political experience cannot develop in people unless passions and reason are oriented by a solid basis of collective virtues, by faith and honor and thirst for justice. The point is that, without the evangelical instinct and the spiritual potential of a living Christianity, political judgment and politic ~ Jacques Maritain

Democracy is not possible without effectively working legal system. ~ Vladimir Putin

We have really, that I know of, no philosophical basis for high and low. Moreover, the vegetable kingdom does not culminate, as the animal kingdom does. It is not a kingdom, but a common-wealth; a democracy, and therefore puzzling and unaccountable from the former point of view. ~ Asa Gray

It is characteristic of Dickens who, when he grasps the wrong end of the stick, never fails to belabour everyone in sight with it. ~ Peter Ackroyd

In this era of the global village, the tide of democracy is running. And it will not cease, not in China, not in South Africa, not in any corner of this earth, where the simple idea of democracy and freedom has taken root. ~ Paul Tsongas

We don't need people who can spit back facts. We've got Google. ~ Roberta Michnick Golinkoff

Every great improvement has come after repeated failures. Virtually nothing comes out right the first time. Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success. ~ Charles Kettering

A democracy without faith is just a machine without power. Nothing can make it function except faith in itself, in the ordinary man and woman. ~ Eleanor Dark

Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments. ~ Alexander Hamilton

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

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! ~ C. Wright Mills

Democracy is such a framework that everyone has the right to live their lives, fix their goals, their aims, their dreams and the ways to achieve them according to their own choice. ~ Narendra Modi

Since the foundation of the State of Israel, the United States has stood by her and helped her to pursue security, peace, and economic growth. Our friendship is based on historic moral and strategic ties, as well as our shared dedication to democracy. ~ Ronald Reagan

I have talked to more people who are in politics who have said to me, "[House of Cards] is closer than you can imagine. It's the most accurate description of how politics actually works that we've ever seen." I mean, West Wing - beautiful, wonderful idea of how democracy should work. But I've had more people in politics say they think House of Cards is closer. I - don't know whether to take that as a compliment or a sad state of affairs. ~ Kevin Spacey

'The Sea Wolf' is the story of a man who believes only in brute force. He is so firm in belief in his own ideas that he despises all who disagree with him. He preaches the doctrine of intolerance. He flaunts the notion that democracy is anything but weakness. ~ Ida Lupino

As a rule, dictatorships guarantee safe streets and terror of the doorbell. In democracy the streets may be unsafe after dark, but the most likely visitor in the early hours will be the milkman. ~ Adam Michnik

Democracies don't prepare well for things that have never happened before. ~ Richard A. Clarke

Not for the first time, I longed to tell someone that I was one of them, a sympathizer with the Left, a revolutionary fighting for peace, equality, democracy, freedom, and independence, all the noble things my people had died for and I had hid for. ~ Viet Thanh Nguyen

You know you have a transparency problem when citizens of a democracy need to rely on WikiLeaks for details on changes to laws. ~ Ziad K. Abdelnour

Hate will keep you alive where love fails ~ Mark Lawrence

In a democracy people get the leaders they deserve. ~ Joseph De Maistre

Don't look so scared. Maybe there is happy endings even for people who don't believe in them. I want you to know something, I've never loved anybody this way. Never looked at a woman and thought: if civilization fails, if the world ends, I will still understand what God meant if I'm with her.

~ Wolf

When nobody fails, everybody loses. Feedback and resilience are vital. ~ Alan Froggatt

Jarvious Cotton cannot vote. Like his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather, he has been denied the right to participate in our electoral democracy. Cotton's family tree tells the story of several generations of black men who were born in the United States but who were denied the most basic freedom that democracy promises - the freedom to vote for those who will make the rules and laws that govern one's life. Cotton's great-great-grandfather could not vote as a slave. His great-grandfather was beaten to death by the Ku Klux Klan for attempting to vote. His grandfather was prevented from voting by Klan intimidation. His father was barred from voting by poll taxes and literacy tests. Today, Jarvious Cotton cannot vote because he, like many black men in the United States, has been labeled a felon and is currently on parole. ~ Michelle Alexander

The menu of this kitchen will have more than soup; it will serve as an opportunity to explore the vast untapped power of food as a force for participatory democracy, as a means of empowerment for those who have little and as a lens through which we embrace, and in fact relish, our differences but see and live through our commonalities. If you eat, then you are a part of this. ~ Sam Kass

Political disagreements have the colour and fragrance that normally is seen and felt in a political bouquet, while remaining united on one issue that democracy is the future of Pakistan. ~ Asif Ali Zardari

The many refugees are not a Greek or German problem. They are a European problem. We should therefore develop a common strategy. That's why I am launching a cross-border movement for more democracy. ~ Yanis Varoufakis

In a democracy the responsibility for the Government's economic policies, which so affect the economy, normally rests with the elected representative of the people: in our case, with the President and the Congress. If these two follow economic policies inimical to the general welfare, they are accountable to the people for their actions on election day. With Federal Reserve independence, however, a body of men exist who control one of the most powerful levers moving the economy and who are responsible to no one. ~ Wright Patman

Democracy demands trust. It demands that sense of mutual understanding. And - it's a two way street. You've got to give - as much as you take. ~ Charles Kennedy

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