Democracy In America Quotes

Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith. ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

Furthermore, when citizens are all almost equal, it becomes difficult for them to defend their independence against the aggressions of power. ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

Similarly, Alexis de Tocqueville, the famous French political philosopher and sociologist, in his classic Democracy in America, written after a lengthy visit in the 1830s, saw equality, not majority rule, as the outstanding characteristic of America. "In America," he wrote, the aristocratic element has always been feeble from its birth; and if at the present day it is not actually destroyed, it is at any rate so completely disabled, that we can scarcely assign to it any degree of influence on the course of affairs. The ~ Milton Friedman

America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great. ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

For those who can, one of the things to do is not to move. To stay put. That doesn't mean don't travel; it means have a place and get involved in what can be done in that place. That's the only way we're going to have a representative democracy in America. Nobody stays anywhere long enough to take responsibility for a local community. ~ Gary Snyder

There can be no doubt of this: All America is divided into two classes--the quality and the equality. The latter will always recognize the former when mistaken for it. Both will be with us until our women bear nothing but kings. It was through the Declaration of Independence that we Americans acknowledged the ETERNAL INEQUALITY of man. For by it we abolished a cut-and-dried aristocracy. We had seen little men artificially held up in high places, and great men artificially held down in low places, and our own justice-loving hearts abhorred this violence to human nature. Therefore, we decreed that every man should thenceforth have equal liberty to find his own level. By this very decree we acknowledged and gave freedom to true aristocracy, saying, "Let the best man win, whoever he is." Let the best man win! That is America's word. That is true democracy. And true democracy and true aristocracy are one and the same thing. If anybody cannot see this, so much the worse for his eyesight. ~ Owen Wister

Shit, man, democracy failed before it started.

Who thought it was a good idea to let the masses of fucktards decide anything?

[Guess I've got more faith in people.]

People? The election of 2044 -- Curls Bellberry, a boy band presidency on the platform that the Earth is flat and that he'd nuke New York to save Social Security. There's a good reason he was the last president.

Problem with letting people pick a leader is they gravitate towards confident sociopaths no matter how stupid they are.

It's the perception of qualification that fools people.

At least by having corporate executives rule us we get folks who are good at business.

Life hurts, the world is fucked, and that's not going to change. . . ~ Rick Remender

Our democracy should aspire to be more democratic. ~ DaShanne Stokes

America posed a deeply interesting question to any Frenchmen with a political curiosity to ask it. How had Americans launched a revolution that aimed at establishing a free, stable, and constitutional government and made a success of it, while the French had in forty-one years lurched from absolute monarchy to constitutional monarchy, to the declaration of the republic, to mob rule, the Terror, the mass murder, and thence to a conservative republic, Napoleonic autocracy, the Bourbon restoration, further revolution, and the installation of an Orleanist constitutional monarchy? ~ Alan Ryan

The idea of an election is much more interesting to me than the election itself ... The act of voting is in itself the defining moment. ~ Jeff Melvoin

From Democracy in America (1835)
It is odd to watch with what feverish ardor the Americans pursue prosperity and how they are ever tormented by the shadowy suspicion that they may not have chosen the shortest route to get it. Americans cleave to the things of this world as if assured that they will never die, and yet are in such a rush to snatch any that come within their reach, as if expecting to stop living before they have relished them. They clutch everything but hold nothing fast, and so lose their grip as they hurry after some new delight. ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

[Health reform] will destroy the country [because] in the next year or so [America will have to] dramatically cut the military because we can't pay for it. ~ Rick Santorum

In my view this is not democracy, but a zoo ... It was exactly what we expected, but not on that scale nor in that form. In a word, it was nothing but a zoo, you can't put it better ~ Alexander Lukashenko

America has the strongest, best-trained, best-led military force in the world, and we have failed them. Our military today is struggling in virtually every category that measures preparedness. ~ John McCain

Where we come from in America no longer signifies. It's where we go, and what we do when we get there, that tells us who we are. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

Whitepeople believed that whatever the manners, under every dark skin was a jungle. Swift unnavigable waters, swinging screaming baboons, sleeping snakes, red gums ready for their sweet white blood. In a way, he thought, they were right. The more coloredpeople spent their strength trying to convince them how gentle they were, how clever and loving, how human, the more they used themselves up to persuade whites of something Negroes believed could not be questioned, the deeper and more tangled the jungle grew inside. But it wasn't the jungle blacks brought with them to this place from the other (livable) place. It was the jungle whitefolks planted in them. And it grew. It spread. In, through and after life, it spread, until it invaded the whites who had made it. Touched them every one. Changed and altered them. Made them bloody, silly, worse than even they wanted to be, so scared were they of the jungle they had made. The screaming baboon lived under their own white skin; the red gums were their own. ~ Toni Morrison

If you go against someone, you say, you can't vote for these Democrats, they don't have good values, they're not good people, they're weak, they're spineless, they're don't love America, they're giving aid and comfort to Saddam Hussein, that's the kind of thing I think is bad for America, because it stops the voters from thinking. And any time you stop thinking in a free society you get in trouble. ~ William J. Clinton

The idea of separating church and state by the Founding Fathers of America was freedom from the domination of one form of religion, because many of them left England, because they were persecuted by the church, because they want to express their Christian faith in a different way. So it was a bit of warfare between Christians. ~ John Lennox

Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? ~ Henry David Thoreau

It is no wonder that Satan hates the family and has hurled his venom against it in the form of Communism. ~ William R. Bowen

I'm American. Like I told you. And I'm American and not something else because they failed that day. They couldn't do it and most of them probably knew they couldn't do it before they even started, but they went anyhow. There's honor in that. I don't reckon there's much honor left in the world now, but they had it that day and I honor them on both sides by knowing what I can about it. Much as I can. ~ Lance Weller

I don't enjoy "Dust in the Wind"as much. But I do enjoy "Song for America," "Carry on, Wayward Son," and many songs- Kansas is really a drummer's dream to play in. And I like 'em all. ~ Phil Ehart

America is really the only country strong enough to cope with the Russians these days, and we depend upon her support for much of our policy in Europe and the Middle East. They have just bought a monopoly oil concession in Saudi Arabia, and now they actually have more oil holdings in the Middle East than ourselves. That makes our role in Iran doubly important, because the Americans will try to pick up Middle East influence where we drop it. However, it is in our mutual interests to see that Russia is checked in the Middle East. We can always depend on American support for our case.' Essex laughed softly. 'In fact the Americans are more vigorous about the Russians than we are, because they are between the devil and our deep blue sea. ~ James Aldridge

We must make the intellectual world safe for democracy. But in the conditions of modern mental anarchy, neither that nor any other ideal is safe. just as Protestants appealed from priests to the Bible, and did not realize that the Bible also could be questioned, so republicans appealed from kings to the people, and did not realize that the people also could be defied. There is no end to the dissolution of ideas, the destruction of all tests of truth, that has become possible since men abandoned the attempt to keep a central and civilized Truth, to contain all truths and trace out and refute all errors. Since then, each group has taken one truth at a time and spent the time in turning it into a falsehood. We have had nothing but movements; or in other words, monomanias. But the Church is not a movement but a meeting-place; the trysting-place of all the truths in the world. ~ G.K. Chesterton

My dad's whole family is in Madras and I was born in America so we didn't have that big Indian community. I don't really have anything interesting to say about it. When I talk about it people are like, 'meh, let's talk about something else.' ~ Mindy Kaling

We [black actors] are more respected in Europe, because in Europe, I'm not a black actor - I'm an action star. In America, I'm a black actor. ~ Fred Williamson

An awful lot of people come to college with this strange idea that there's no longer segregation in America's schools, that our schools are basically equal; neither of these things is true. ~ Jonathan Kozol

We are in a democracy, and I think for all issues, whatever matters that the opposition may have apprehension on, there is a forum, and it is called Parliament. ~ Pallam Raju

The races are like America's children. White people are the firstborn, so they were Dad's favorite. Black people are the second kids, the abused ones, so they still hate Dad. Latinos are the third, caught in the middle and always trying to make peace between the other siblings. Asians are the youngest, and get good marks in school, but basically are just trying to keep their heads down and not get involved. And Native Americans are the old uncle who owns a house and everyone else in the family was like, "He's not using that! Let's move in! ~ Colin Quinn

After two undefeated seasons of 'Worst Cooks in America,' I'm ready for a third. Going against Bobby Flay takes the challenge to another level, but I'm ready to whip these contestants into shape and the winner is sure to be from Team Burrell. ~ Anne Burrell

Centuries-old wounds are still raw because they never healed right in the first place. Here is the essential truth. We are better together than we are apart. ~ Mitch Landrieu

Meaningful student involvement is the process of engaging students as partners in every facet of school change for the purpose strengthening their commitment to education, community & democracy. ~ Adam Fletcher

I thought this election was an adult discussion on how best to protect ourselves in the face of terrorism, but apparently it was a referendum on boys kissing. When homophobia trumps terrorism in America, wow. This country needs to get laid. ~ Bill Maher

Dishonesty in government is the business of every citizen. It is not enough to do your own job. There's no particular virtue in that. Democracy isn't a gift. It's a responsibility. ~ Dalton Trumbo

In a democracy scientific institutions, research programmes, and suggestions must therefore be subjected to public control, there must be a separation of state and science just as there is a separation between state and religious institutions, and science should be taught as one view among many and not as the one and only road to truth and reality. ~ Paul Karl Feyerabend

The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq were the ones who attacked us in America on September the 11th. ~ George W. Bush

In democracy, people's verdict is always final and we all have to accept it with humility. ~ Narendra Modi

God Bless America started to become an almost ritualistic incantation at the end of political speeches really with Ronald Reagan. It appears occasionally before, but it was not that common. And of course since it was a song that wasn't written by Irving Berlin until the 20th century (laughter), none of the 19th century presidents said God Bless America at the end of speeches, either. I think that the symbolism which suggests that everybody is religious and that even presidents who believe in church and state feel obliged to do this ... ~ Susan Jacoby

The founders were very worried that if parties developed in America, you might have something like the modern Italian system, where you have 20 different parties that divide Congress and the country and can't govern. ~ Michael Beschloss

We don't like to talk about that in America, but there are classes in America. And she [Julia Child] was of a class of women who were wealthy, privately educated, went to Smith, moved in that sort of circle. She was conscripted into the OSS, which is the early CIA, which was all filled with Yalies and Princeton and Harvard people and a few women who were typing mostly but also had something to do. ~ Meryl Streep

It came home to me indelibly that I was never going to change anything in America by walking around carrying a sign. It was a great revelation. It saved me a lot of anxiety and a lot of wasted energy. ~ Peter Coyote

The executive power in our government is not the only, perhaps not even the principal, object of my solicitude. The tyranny of the legislature is really the danger most to be feared, and will continue to be so for many years to come. The tyranny of the executive power will come in its turn, but at a more distant period. ~ Thomas Jefferson

Democracy cannot be exported to some other place. This must be a product of internal domestic development in a society. ~ Vladimir Putin

Not everyone would see a passive public as necessarily a bad thing. There are benefits to limiting political engagement to a minority of highly committed citizens, with the majority involving itself only in elections and other major events. This elitist theory exists as as strand within Western democratic thought, with proponents arguing that modern governance is so complex that over-politicisation of issues and over-participation by the masses is an liability: it would add an irrational element to governance that could undermine democracy. Sustainable democracy instead requires a fairly passive mass, such that most matters are debated and settled within the political elite, at least when things are running smoothly ~ Cherian George

It's millions of leeches from a primitive country come here to leech off you and, with it, they are ruining the schools, the hospitals, and a lot of life in America. ~ Jay Severin

Parties do not maintain themselves. They are maintained by effort. The government is not self-existent. It is maintained by the effort of those who believe in it. The people of America believe in American institutions, the American form of government and the American method of transacting business. ~ Calvin Coolidge

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

It is the distinctive position of the Reformation with which, over against Rome, it stands or falls, that that which properly constitutes, defines, and perpetuates in unity a Church, is its doctrine, not its name or organization. While a Church retains its proper identity it retains of necessity its proper doctrine. Deserting its doctrine it loses its identity. The Church is not a body which bears its name like England, or America, which remain equally England and America, whether savage or civilized, Pagan or Christian, Monarchical or Republican. Its name is one which properly indicates its faith--and the faith changing, the Church loses its identity. Pagans may become Mohammedans, but then they are no longer Pagans--they are Mohammedans. Jews may become Christians, but then they are no longer Jews in religion. A Manichean man, or Manichean Church, might become Catholic, but then they would be Manichean no more. A Romish Church is Romish; a Pelagian Church is Pelagian; a Socinian Church is Socinian, though they call themselves Protestant, Evangelical, or Trinitarian. If the whole nominally Lutheran Church on earth should repudiate the Lutheran doctrine, that doctrine would remain as really Lutheran as it ever was. A man, or body of men, may cease to be Lutherans, but a doctrine which is Lutheran once, is Lutheran forever. Hence, now, as from the first, that is not a Lutheran Church, in the proper and historical sense, which cannot ex animo declare that it shares in the accor ~ Charles Porterfield Krauth

When you don't stop evil in its tracks when you first recognize it, you will end up with a monster force that will spread its tentacles and affect the lives of millions. Because we did not want to judge evildoers such as the Palestinians bombing innocent Israelis, the Taliban taking over Afghanistan, and Saddam Hussein gassing his own people, we have helped create the monsters we are dealing with today. Don't be afraid to stand up and lift your head and be proud of what America and Western culture stand for. America did not pull itself out of the grip of tyranny and feudalism for nothing. America as a Western culture and as a nation is a tribute to men and women and God's creation at its best. ~ Brigitte Gabriel

He wanted to know about day-to-day life in America, what people ate and what consumed them, what shamed them and what attracted them, but he read novel after novel and was disappointed: ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The Manitou of America will creep in you, rejoice you when she shines above, and offend and sadden you when she is put down. ~ George Sorbane

Decades, if not centuries are normally required for people to acquire the necessary disciplines and habits. (for democracy) In Britain, the road to (democratic government) took seven centuries to traverse . ~ Jeane Kirkpatrick

But the "Get Tough America" policy, the spirit of revenge, the approbation of all destruction and killing, has earned us a name for obscene brutality, and cost the World the possibility of Germany's becoming a peaceful and intellectually fruitful nation in anything but the most remote future. ~ Kurt Vonnegut