Wilsonian Democracy Quotes

You have to realize that modern power, is nothing but a concept in the mind of the one who's under the power. And once you realize this, you realize that authority is indeed an illusion. ~ Phoenix Sinistra

And yet these Americans, with their helicopters and laser-guided weapons and shock-troop Rangers were going to somehow sort it out in a few weeks? Arrest Aidid and make it all better? They were trying to take down a clan, the most ancient and efficient social organization known to man. Didn't the Americans realize that for every leader they arrested there were dozens of brothers, cousins, sons, and nephews to take his place? Setbacks just strengthened the clan's resolve. Even if the Habr Gidr were somehow crippled or destroyed, wouldn't that just elevate the next most powerful clan? Or did the Americans expect Somalia to suddenly sprout full-fledged Jeffersonian democracy? ~ Mark Bowden

Stock ownership in the US is very highly concentrated. [Shareholder actions are] something, but it's like the old Communist Party in the USSR, it would be nice to see more protest inside the Communist Party but it's not democracy. It's not going to happen. [Shareholder actions] are a good step, but they're mostly symbolic. ~ Noam Chomsky

We can have democracy and a prosperous, just, and sustainable human future. Or we can have corporate rule. We cannot have both. ~ David Korten

But the West is trying to weaken Islam from outside and inside. They attack our people and invade our countries from outside, and they weaken us from within with ideas like secularism, liberalism and democracy. This is all designed to contaminate our pure Islam. ~ Abu Bakar Bashir

Democracy alone can supply the vitalizing force to stir the peoples of the world into triumphant action, not only against their human oppressors, but also against their ancient enemies-hunger, misery, and despair. ~ Harry S. Truman

If democracy is ever to be threatened, it will not be by revolutionary groups burning government offices and occupying the broadcasting and newspaper offices of the world. It will come from disenchantment, cynicism and despair caused by the realisation that the New World Order means we are all to be managed and not represented. ~ Tony Benn

Dr. King's leadership reaffirmed the promise of our democracy: that everyday people, working together, have the power to change our government and our institutions for the better. ~ Maria Cantwell

What if democracy does not serve liberty? This question is seldom asked in the West, where democracy is often seen as synonymous with liberalism. ~ Mustafa Akyol

Change represents the real spirit of democracy and the real America. ~ Bryant McGill

Only a government that is rich and safe can afford to be a democracy, for democracy is the most expensive and nefarious kind of government ever heard of on earth ~ Mark Twain

When the qualities that now confer leadership have become universal, there will no longer be leaders and followers, and democracy will have been realized at last. ~ Bertrand Russell

Elections are supposed to be political occasions. In fact the opposite is true. The last thing politicians want to talk about at election-time is politics. What they want to talk about is votes. And the less you talk about politics, the more votes you're likely to win - otherwise you might offend someone. ~ Alex Callinicos

Neoliberalism considers the discourse of equality, justice, and democracy quaint, if not dangerous and must be either trivialized, turned into its Orwellian opposite, or eviscerated from public life. ~ Henry Giroux

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 more developed a nation is, the more complete is the independence of the individual, and the safer the individual from encroachments by another. ~ Dmitry Pisarev

I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible. ~ Peter Thiel

I believe in the fireside. I believe in the democracy of home. I believe in the republicanism of the family. I believe in liberty, equality and love. ~ Robert G. Ingersoll

The return of democracy in our land has indeed thrown the problems of development into bolder relief. ~ Ibrahim Babangida

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

I think what it was about was the people's right to vote and have those votes counted. And if you think back through our history, an awful lot of what we've fought over, struggled for, is the right of people to vote. That's what the civil-rights movement was, at its bottom, about. At the fundamental level, democracy means a government in which the people vote. ~ David Boies

Democracy is an objective. Democratization is a process. Democratization serves the cause of peace because it offers the possibility of justice and of progressive change without force. ~ Boutros Boutros-Ghali

Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage. H. L. MENCKEN ~ Frank Luntz

Despotism may be able to do without religion, but democracy cannot. ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

So in Asia I want to make - I want to succeed to make a model of what success, practicing democracy, and market economy. Then that will give a good influence over Asian countries. ~ Kim Dae-jung

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

Legal systems, at both the national and international level, are therefore required to recognize, guarantee and protect religious freedom, which is a right intrinsically inherent in human nature, in man's dignity as a free being, and is also an indicator of a healthy democracy and cone of the main sources of the legitimacy of the State. Religious freedom ... favors the development of relationships of mutual respect between the different Confessions and their healthy collaboration with the State and political society, without confusion of roles and without antagonism. ~ Pope Francis

I think that in Mexico, we must change some practices that were built during the 72 years of predominance in Mexico. Former presidents would just hide away, run away or disappear. And I think it's key in a democracy that presidents face people, see eye to eye to citizens and work to keep on contributing to the - to Mexico. ~ Vicente Fox

The history of ancient Greece showed that, in a democracy, emotion dominates reason to a greater extent than in any other political system, thus giving freer rein to the passions which sweep a state into war and prevent it getting out - at any point short of the exhaustion and destruction of one or other of the opposing sides. Democracy is a system which puts a brake on preparation for war, aggressive or defensive, but it is not one that conduces to the limitation of warfare or the prospects of a good peace. No political system more easily becomes out of control when passions are aroused. These defects have been multiplied in modern democracies, since their great extension of size and their vast electorate produce a much larger volume of emotional pressure. ~ B.H. Liddell Hart

A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Democracy can hardly be expected to flourish in societies where political and economic power is being progressively concentrated and centralized. But the progress of technology has led and is still leading to just such a concentration and centralization of power. ~ Aldous Huxley

You can't have an industrial revolution, you can't have democracies, you can't have populations who can govern themselves until you have literacy. The printing press simply unlocked literacy. ~ Howard Rheingold

The question of whether we were misled into the war in Iraq isn't a liberal or conservative or Republican or Democratic question, it's an American one. Protecting the democracy that we ask our sons and daughters to die for is our responsibility and our trust. Demanding accountability from our leaders is our job as citizens. It's the American way. So may the truth win out. ~ Bruce Springsteen

We have unleashed aspirations of youngsters. Democracy is not going to go backwards. India is too big a country to be run by one person. We are going to accelerate the process of democratization and I think that is the biggest opportunity for Congress party because that is the DNA of the Congress ~ Rahul Gandhi

Americans today are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism in the twentieth century. One advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so. ~ Timothy Snyder

I think it is absolutely essential in a democracy to have competition in the media, a lot of competition, and we seem to be moving away from that. ~ Walter Cronkite

The moment politics becomes dull, democracy is in danger. ~ Lord Hailsham

Rwanda is a monarchy not a democracy. ~ Paul Kagame

The anti-war movement should turn itself into a pro-democracy movement ~ Naomi Klein

Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates. ~ Gore Vidal

Having created the conditions that make markets possible, democracy must do all the things that markets undo or cannot do. ~ Benjamin Barber

Be apprised, though, that the Maine Lobster Festival's democratization of lobster comes with all the massed inconvenience and aesthetic compromise of real democracy. See, for example, the aforementioned Main Eating Tent, for which there is a constant Disneyland-grade queue, and which turns out to be a square quarter mile of awning-shaded cafeteria lines and rows of long institutional tables at which friend and stranger alike sit cheek by jowl, cracking and chewing and dribbling. It's hot, and the sagged roof traps the steam and the smells, which latter are strong and only partly food-related. It is also loud, and a good percentage of the total noise is masticatory. ~ David Foster Wallace

We live in what is called a democracy, rule by the majority of the people. A fine ideal if it could be made to work. The people elect, but the party machines nominate, and the party machines to be effective must spend a great deal of money. Somebody has to give it to them, and that somebody, whether it be an individual, a financial group, a trade union or what have you, expects some consideration in return. What I and people of my kind expect is to be allowed to live our lives in decent privacy. I own newspapers, but I don't like them. I regard them as a constant menace to whatever privacy we have left. Their constant yelping about a free press means, with a few honorable exceptions, freedom to peddle scandal, crime, sex, sensationalism, hate, innuendo, and the political and financial uses of propaganda. A newspaper is a business out to make money through advertising revenue. That is predicated on its circulation and you know what the circulation depends on. ~ Raymond Chandler

Democracy as a system has evolved into something that Thomas Jefferson didn't anticipate. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

In any country, governance issues are there. Challenges are there, pressures are there. When multi-party coalitions take decisions, sometimes delays will be there. But that is what democracy is: it is beauty or it's challenge. ~ Anand Sharma

We are in this business, whether it be intelligence or the government, to protect freedom, democracy and liberty, not to violate that. ~ John O. Brennan

Scholars have been arguing for a long time whether the Soviet Union could have been turned into some kind of social democracy. I doubt it myself. I think what Gorbachev didn't quite understand, until it was too late, is that his efforts at change unleashed new, certrifical forces he hadn't counted on. He opened the door a crack and a huge wind blew it open. ~ David Hoffman

The sense of space within the reality of any building is a new concept wherever architecture is concerned. But it is essential ancient principle just the same and is not only necessary now but implied by the ideal of democracy itself. ~ Frank Lloyd Wright