Liberian Democracy Quotes

We should be working to live, not living to work. We have created this "individualistic culture" were living to work has been centered around material gains. Working to live is a better approach because it emphasis on the human experiences and the condition of living. ~ Henry Johnson Jr

Liberia got Petroleum (Oil): The problem of development lies in good leadership and great communication. Some of our leaders want to turn the country's oil company into the Gaddafi regime of Libya that they could rule Liberia and their sons and grand kids can also rule as well. It's a form of oppression. The Liberian people want a leader, not an oppressor or an installed puppet. Someone who will put the country and its peoples' interest first. Not a corrupt politician who's out to rip the country apart, in the name of enriching their families. ~ Henry Johnson Jr

Africa is for "Africans," and on those premises, only Africans can change Africa. Western's handouts will not do it. ~ Henry Johnson Jr

I told the students that we can exert pressure without resorting to violence, and that we can move towards democracy without violence; that way, God will allow it. ~ Abdurrahman Wahid

As a veteran, I know firsthand the satisfaction there is in defending the democracy you so strongly believe in, but I can also attest to the trauma encountered from combat on the battlefield. ~ Charles B. Rangel

That we should all have a say in choosing our own rulers and that those rulers 'powers over us should be limited - these principles are in obvious tension, as every society that has tried to combine liberty and democracy has discovered. Without Protestantism and its peculiar preoccupations, that strange and marvelous synthesis could never have come into being as it has. ~ Alec Ryrie

I think in Pakistan there is already democracy and no dictatorship. And recently a few years ago, the Pakistani people stood against the dictatorship of [Pervez] Musharraf and compelled him to resign. So now it is the people's democracy so I don't think any chance that the people should stand against this administration. Pakistan's situation is different than Egypt. They cannot be compared. ~ Shahbaz Bhatti

The path to the ethnic democratization of American society is through its culture, that is to say through its cultural apparatus, which comprises the eyes, the ears, and the "mind" of capitalism and is twentieth-century voice to the world. Thus to democratize the cultural apparatus is tantamount to revolutionizing American society itself into the living realization of its professed ideas. Seeing the problem in another way, to revolutionize the cultural apparatus is to deal fundamentally with the unsolved American question of nationality--Which group speaks for America and for the glorification of which ethnic image? Either all group images speak for themselves and for the nation, or American nationality will never be determined. ~ Harold Cruse

Defending democracy also sounds fine; but to defend democracy by military means, one must be militarily efficient and one cannot become militarily efficient without centralizing power, setting up a tyranny, imposing some form of conscription or slavery to the state. In other words, the miltary defence of democracy in contemporary circumstances entails the abolition of democracy even before war starts. ~ Aldous Huxley

Democratic ideas cannot exist without the public spheres that make them possible. ~ Henry A. Giroux

Like the big collaborative projects of the internet, such as Wikipedia and Firefox, like the decentralized network of websites and machines that make up the internet itself, language is a network, a web. Language is the ultimate participatory democracy. To put it in technological terms, language is humanity's most spectacular open source project. ~ Gretchen McCulloch

There are many who criticise the United Nations. And those of us who know this institution well know that it is not immune from criticism. But those who argue against the United Nations advance no credible argument as to what should replace it. Whatever its imperfections, the United Nations represents a necessary democracy of states. ~ Kevin Rudd

Former Secretary (Hillary) Clinton has dedicated her life to serving and engaging people across the world in democracy. These efforts as a citizen, an activist, and a leader have earned Secretary Clinton this year's Liberty Medal. ~ Jeb Bush

Sometimes nations come to a junction: There, they have to make a choice between democracy and fascism, that is to say, between life and death! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

The result of the revolution in Germany has been to establish a democracy in the best sense of the word. We are steering towards an order of things guaranteeing a process of a natural and reasonable selection in the domain of political leadership, thanks to which that leadership will be entrusted to the most competent, irrespective of their descent, name or fortune. The memorable words of the great Corsican that every soldier carries a Field Marshal's baton in his knapsack, will find its political complement in Germany. ~ Adolf Hitler

All men know that by sheer weight of physical force, the mass of men must in the last resort become the arbiters of human action. But reason, skill, wealth, machines and power may for long periods enable the few to control the many. But to what end? The current theory of democracy is that dictatorship is a stopgap pending the work of universal education, equitable income, and strong character. But always the temptation is to use the stopgap for narrower ends, because intelligence, thrift and goodness seem so impossibly distant for most men. We rule by junta; we turn Fascist, because we do not believe in men; yet the basis of fact in this disbelief is incredibly narrow. We know perfectly well that most human beings have never had a decent human chance to be full men. Most of us may be convinced that even with opportunity the number of utter human failures would be vast; and yet remember that this assumption kept the ancestors of present white America long in slavery and degradation.

It is then one's moral duty to see that every human being, to the extent of his capacity, escapes ignorance, poverty and crime. With this high ideal held unswervingly in view, monarchy, oligarchy, dictatorships may rule; but the end will be the rule of All, if mayhap All or Most qualify. The only unforgivable sin is dictatorship for the benefit of Fools, Voluptuaries, gilded Satraps, Prostitutes and Idiots. The rule of the famished, unlettered, stinking mob is better than this and the on ~ W.E.B. Du Bois

India is a democracy; it is in our DNA. ~ Narendra Modi

America's objective in the Middle East is to create democracy in the same way that my goal on a first date to feed women. ~ Dov Davidoff

It is a truth widely recognized that tyranny stems from the consent of the governed as much as democracy does. ~ Eric Robert Morse

Democracy is our most valuable possession. Upholding it is our duty and our responsibility. This means a continuous, decisive and self-confident argument; it means effort and endeavor to reach compromise and long-lasting consensus. These form the cornerstones of the only form of political system that can guarantee freedom. ~ Wolfgang Thierse

But democracy is by no means a limit one may not overstep; it is only one of the stages in the course of development from feudalism to capitalism, and from capitalism to Communism. ~ Vladimir Lenin

A democracy is a compromise by its nature. It's not a dictatorship. ~ Jamie Dimon

Republicans are systematically and deliberately trying to stop millions of American citizens from voting. What part of democracy are they afraid of? I call on Republicans at all levels of government, with all manner of ambition, to stop fear mongering about a phantom epidemic of election fraud. I'm calling for universal, automatic voter registration, every citizen in every state in the union. ~ Greg Gutfeld

I chose America as my home because I value freedom and democracy, civil liberties and an open society. ~ George Soros

Our democratic societies rest on a meritocratic worldview, or at any rate a meritocratic hope, by which I mean a belief in a society in which inequality is based more on merit and effort than on kinship and rents. This belief and this hope play a very crucial role in modern society, for a simple reason: in a democracy, the professed equality of rights of all citizens contrasts sharply with the very real inequality of living conditions, and in order to overcome this contradiction it is vital to make sure that social inequalities derive from rational and universal principles rather than arbitrary contingencies. Inequalities must therefore be just and useful to all, at least in the realm of discourse and as far as possible in reality as well. ~ Thomas Piketty

Yet the true friend of the people should see that they be not too poor, for extreme povery lowers the character of the democracy; measures therefore should be taken which will give them lasting prosperity; and as this is equally the interest of all classes, the proceeds of the public revenues should be accumulated and distributed among its poor, if possible, in such quantities as may enable them to purchase a little farm, or, at any rate, make a beginning in trade or husbandry. ~ Aristotle.

Democracy cannot be built on revenge and you will not have the support of the world if you are intolerant and take the law into your own hands. ~ Madeleine Albright

The interesting thing about that is one of the greatest critics of socialism and leftwing writings was Robert Michels who wrote a series of essays called "The Iron Law of Oligarchy" and in these essays he discusses how no matter what sorts of freedoms are advertised or put into a society structure, that all societies, all form of governments - whether they be a Roman republic, whether they be a democracy, whether they be a Russian communist system, whatever, a tribe ... a tribal council - all of the continuously, throughout the ages, have all converted back into an oligarchy. ~ Immortal Technique

Social democracy does not represent an ideal future; it does not even represent the ideal past. ~ Tony Judt

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

A marvel that has nothing to offer, democracy is at once a nation's paradise and its tomb. ~ Emile M. Cioran

When we define democracy now it must still be as a thing hoped for but not seen. ~ Pearl S. Buck

Democracy is not an easy form of government, because it is never final; it is a living, changing organism, with a continuous shifting and adjusting of balance between individual freedom and general order. ~ Ilka Chase

The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies "something not desirable" ... In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning. ~ George Orwell

Of course it isn't. It's just an arbitrary set of rules like chess or tennis or - what's that strange thing you British play?" "Er, cricket? Self-loathing?" "Parliamentary democracy. ~ Douglas Adams

Just the other day the AP wire had a story about a man from Arkansas who entered some kind of contest and won a two-week vacation
all expenses paid
wherever he wanted to go. Any place in the world: Mongolia, Easter Island, the Turkish Riviera ... but his choice was Salt Lake City, and that's where he went. Is this man a registered voter? Has he come to grips with the issues? Has he bathed in the blood of the lamb? ~ Hunter S. Thompson

Democracy means that people can say what they want to. All the people. It means that they can vote as they wish. All the people. It means that they can worship God in any way they feel right, and that includes Christians and Jews and voodoo doctors as well. ~ Dalton Trumbo

Playing a fool is the best paid role. ~ Ljupka Cvetanova

In fact quite generally, commercial advertising is fundamentally an effort to undermine markets. We should recognize that. If you've taken an economics course, you know that markets are supposed to be based on informed consumers making rational choices. You take a look at the first ad you see on television and ask yourself … is that it's purpose? No it's not. It's to create uninformed consumers making irrational choices. And these same institutions run political campaigns. It's pretty much the same: you have to undermine democracy by trying to get uninformed people to make irrational choices. ~ Noam Chomsky

You got the impression that each and every little individual was feeling pretty important doing the pretty important job of building up a State . The atmosphere reminded me of a word it was 'democracy.' ~ Anna Louise Strong

The only salvation of the world today ... is the rapid dissemination of the basic values of the West, that is, the ideas of democracy, human rights, the civil society, and the free market. ~ Vaclav Havel

The more I see of democracy the more I dislike it. It just brings everything down to the mere vulgar level of wages and prices, electric light and water closets, and nothing else. ~ D.H. Lawrence

Democracy is "government of, by and for the people". ~ Abraham Lincoln

Celebrity distorts democracy by giving the rich, beautiful, and famous more authority than they deserve. ~ Maureen Dowd

In establishing democracy, we have to be sensitive to the regional and national context. Democracy also means to guarantee the rights of the minorities. That's my job as a king. We have for example a Jewish ambassador in the US and a Christian in the UK. ~ Hamad Bin Isa Al Khalifa

Gobbledygook may indicate a failure to think clearly, a contempt for one's clients, or more probably a mixture of both. A system that can't or won't communicate is not a safe basis for a democracy. ~ Michael Shanks

The United States makes large claims for itself, among them the claim that the nation is the model for a society based simultaneously on democracy and multiethnicity. It's certainly no exaggeration to say that on the success or failure of this principle much else depends. But there must be better ways of affirming it than by clinging to an insipid parody of a two-party system that counts as a virtue the ability to escape thorny questions and postpone larger ones. ~ Christopher Hitchens

Can people be persuaded?' is a very different question from 'Can arguments be won?' People change their minds about things all the time, but I'm not sure that anybody ever wins an argument. Persuasion is not a zero-sum game. It occurs when somebody moves, even slightly, away from one position and toward another. It is entirely possible for two (or more) people to move closer to each other's positions during an argument without either one being able to claim victory over the other.

But we like to win, and we hate to lose, so the fact that people don't usually win arguments doesn't stop most of us from trying. And we all think we know what winning means: It means crushing opponents and making them cry. It means humiliating them in front of a crowd. And it means displaying our power and our rightness for all the world to see and acknowledge. And this means that we often end up trying to win by employing rhetorical strategies that are fundamentally incapable of persuading anybody of anything. And that looks a lot like losing. ~ Michael Austin

Every culture has its distinctive and normal system of government. Yours is democracy, moderated by corruption. Ours is totalitarianism, moderated by assassination. ~ Unknown Russian