Developing Democracy Quotes

In an age of widespread communication and accountability, people expect political participation and accountability much more than they did in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries. The only way the demand for meaningful political participation and choice can be suppressed is to constrain liberty - Larry Diamond, Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), Chapter 1 ('Defining and Developing Democracy'). p. 4 ~ Larry Diamond

Billionaires like the Koch brothers, casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, and political puppet master Karl Rove should not be able to buy our elections. Secret money should not be able to drown out the voices of the American people and sell our Democracy to the highest bidder. ~ Hank Johnson

All democracies are based on the proposition that power is very dangerous and that it is extremely important not to let any one person or small group have too much power for too long a time ~ Aldous Huxley

If we want to implement climate protection worldwide, countries like Germany, which are capable of developing new technologies, will have to hand over some of their knowledge. We can't expect to have our cake and eat it too. ~ Sigmar Gabriel

I live in Europe and care about democracy and sovereignty of nation states there. ~ Vaclav Klaus

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

Aristotle believed democracy could exist only because of slavery, which gave citizens the leisure for higher pursuits. (Modern versions of this argument held that American democracy was born of the slave society of rural Virginia, because slavery gave men like Washington and Jefferson the free time to better themselves and to participate in representative government.) ~ Tom Reiss

Jazz is so difficult. A lot of people think once they've learned these licks they can get up and play them for the rest of their life. But that's not being truthful to the music 'cause it's not developing. Cats you hear that don't make no mistakes? They ain't trying to do nothing. everything they hear is on the mark, but they've played it so many times ... I've built a whole career out of making mistakes! ~ Lester Bowie

Looking at various means of developing compassion, I think empathy is an important factor: the ability to appreciate others' suffering. ~ Dalai Lama

Democracy is not merely a form of Government.
It is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience.
It is essentially an attitude of respect and reverence towards our fellow men. ~ B.R. Ambedkar

Democracy saved you from being a slave, now don't try to be someone's master. ~ Amit Kalantri

Only citizens familiar with their city as both symbolic and practical territory, able to come together on foot and accustomed to walking about their city, can revolt. Few remember that "the right of the people peaceably to assemble" is listed in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, along with freedom of the press, of speech, and of religion, as critical to a democracy. ~ Rebecca Solnit

I will not take 'but' for an answer. Negroes have been looking at democracy's 'but' too long. ~ Langston Hughes

The true state--- it is hardly necessary to say this---does not admit the rule of parties (partitocrazia) of democratic regimes. ~ Julius Evola

The media and intelligentsia were partly complicit in Trump's depiction of the world as a dystopia headed for even greater disaster. 'Charge the cockpit or you die!' cried the pro-Trump intellectual right. 'I'd rather see the empire burn to the ground under Trump, opening up at least the possibility of radical change, than cruise on autopilot under Clinton,' said the pro-Trump left. When people believe that the world is heading off a cliff, they are receptive to the perennial appeal of demagogues: 'What do you have to lose?'

But if the media and intellectuals put events into statistical and historical context, rather than constantly crying 'crisis,' they would make it clearer what the answer to that question is. Revolutionary regimes from Nazi Germany and Maoist China to contemporary Venezuela show that people have a tremendous amount to lose when a charismatic leader forces a radical personal vision on a society. A modern liberal democracy is a precious achievement. Until the messiah comes, it will always have problems, but it's better to solve problems than to start a conflagration and hope for the best. ~ Steven Pinker

The issue is not whether people are "good enough" for a particular type of society; rather it is a matter of developing the kind of social institutions that are most conducive to expanding the potentialities we have for intelligence, grace, sociability and freedom. ~ Paul Goodman

For every African state, like Ghana, where democratic institutions seem secure, there is a Mali, a Cote d'Ivoire, and a Zimbabwe, where democracy is in trouble. ~ Michael Ignatieff

Fighting for equality is often misunderstood as simply being offered the same terms as men on paper. In many ways we already have that. What we don't have is emancipation: the opportunity to be free of social and external shackles that perpetuate inequality and women's lower position. Women around the world are now demanding more: paid work, a life for their children, but also the right to be listened to, a political voice, direct democracy, and the right to a full civic life. That isn't won by keeping quiet: it's won by physically and psychologically going on strike, by shouting back, and leaning out. ~ Dawn Foster

Success of democracy lies within the analytical thought of a common man. ~ M.H. Rakib

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

A lot of the parallel processing software we're currently developing for supercomputers is tantric. ~ Frederick Lenz

No one with feeds thinks about it," she said. "When you have the feed all your life, you're brought up to not think about things. Like them never telling you that it's a republic and not a democracy. It's something that makes me angry, what people don't know about these days. Because of the feed, we're raising a nation of idiots. Ignorant, self-centered idiots. ~ M T Anderson

There are a lot of things that I really question - the legality of the drone strikes, these NSA revelations. Jimmy Carter came out and said we don't live in a democracy. That's a little intense when an ex-president says that. So you know, he's got some explaining to do, particularly for a constitutional law professor. ~ Matt Damon

Democracy only works when we claim it as our own ~ Bill Moyers

Well, you know, too much democracy is a sort of sad thing. ~ Ann Richards

Hanging one scoundrel, it appears, does not deter the next. Well, what of it? The first one is at least disposed of. ~ H.L. Mencken

So I think democracy, in the long-term, in our countries will survive if it comes to be associated with leadership, will not survive if democracy plus media brings to us more and more followship rather than leadership. ~ Mario Monti

There is no danger of developing eyestrain from looking at the bright side of things. ~ Joyce Meyer

There was a happy irony in the first cousin of the autocratic Kaiser Wilhelm II and Tsar Nicholas II (with whom George bore a striking resemblance) furthering British democracy. ~ Paul Ham

A democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism. ~ Pope John Paul II

i believe in the freedom of state where every people have to right develop their culture and maintain the democracy while two things are very essential justice and equality - Long Live Pakistan and Happy Independence Day ~ Avinash Advani

In spite of the huge diversity in Malaysia in terms of religion, culture, race, ethnicity and so forth, we've really gone very far in developing this country. ~ Najib Razak

We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction. ~ Bob Graham

Catholic schools prepare every student to meet the challenges of their future by developing their mind, yes, but also their body and their soul and spirit. ~ David Vitter

A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of their master who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not proceed to the last extremes of injustice and oppression. ~ Edward Gibbon

Let me say again that the relationship is asymmetrical: there's no democracy without a market economy, but you can have a market economy without democracy. ~ Peter L. Berger

Democracy and equality try to denythe mystic recognition of difference and innate priority, the joy of obedience and the sacred responsibility of authority. ~ D.H. Lawrence

Normally we divide the external world into that which we consider to be good or valuable, bad or worthless, or neither. Most of the time these discriminations are incorrect or have little meaning. For example, our habitual way of categorizing people as friends, enemies, and strangers depending on how they make us feel is both incorrect and a great obstacle to developing impartial love for all living beings. Rather than holding so tightly to our discriminations of the external world, it would be much more beneficial if we learned to discriminate between valuable and worthless states of mind. ~ Kelsang Gyatso

In society, we have these unspoken rules of conduct, these 'shoulds.' Even though we pride ourselves on being a democracy, there are all these ways we say you 'should' behave. But what if you're living your life by the 'shoulds' and you're not really living your life? ~ Chris Noth

If you give up on democracy, you might as well give up on everything. ~ Robert Reich

Right to peace stands on the pillars of freedom of expression, respect for human rights, cultural diversity and scientific cooperation. Right to peace transform culture of war to a culture of peace. It is also saving humanity from the dangers of dark democracy, which exploits innocent citizens by implementing wrong law, purchased press and digital surveillance. ~ Amit Ray

It's unlikely that any of those natural hazards will do us in within the next 100 years if we've already survived 100,000. By contrast, we are introducing, through human activity, entirely new types of dangers by developing powerful new technologies. We have no record of surviving those. ~ Nick Bostrom

Unless the people can choose their leaders and rulers, and can revoke their choice at intervals long enough to test their measuresby results, the government will be a tyranny exercised in the interests of whatever classes or castes or mobs or cliques have this choice. ~ George Bernard Shaw