Democracy Quotes

Democracy is an insecure landscape.

South Africa has faced many problems in the past. You would understand those problems if you understood the history of the struggle to get rid of Apartheid and the struggle to establish democracy.

Ours is a government of liberty by, through, and under the law. A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be great or a democracy.

Although Christianity has never been the guarantee of a democratic state anywhere in the world, no democracy has ever thrived successfully for any period of time outside of Christian influence.

A President and his wise men can only propose; but Congress disposes. It is when President and Congress agree that American history marches forward.

Thus our democracy was from an early period the most aristocratic, and our aristocracy the most democratic.

Democracy will prevail when men believe the vote of Judas as good as that of Jesus Christ.

The best defense of democracy is an informed electorate.

The greatest characters the world has known, have rose on the democratic floor. Aristocracy has not been able to keep a proportionate pace with democracy.

Democracy will never be supplanted by a republic of experts—and that is a very good thing.

I have often before now been convinced that a democracy is incapable of empire.

I don't understand why it has to be either - or - either socialism or democracy. Why can't we combine things to get the best of each system?

It is past time for the U.S. government to fully fulfill our moral obligation to those who have fought for freedom and democracy.

Constitutional democracy has created astonishing and apparently irreversible social progress. All we're interested in is talking about when government doesn't work.

The democratic thought is based on that 'ordinary people' are suitable to rule themselves.

The kind of values for which I was supposed to kill, such as democracy and national independence, were better served, I thought, through non-violent action.

I do believe that what I have called populist democracy is to be preferred to what I have called elitist democracy.

Different generations and people of different ethnic origins have different views on China. But they all agree on one thing. That is democracy.

I'm such a sap for democracy and politics that I get weepy when I see anybody voting.

We have had raucous moments in our history. And I think we're in one now. But it's not going to endanger the future of democracy.

I've never been in the studio where it felt like I didn't have a voice. Whether I was co-producing or producing by myself, this community is the one place where I really see democracy at its purest.

In the referendum - which was still decided to take place by the Crimea's old parliament - the majority of citizens voted for belonging to Russia. This is democracy, the people's will.

We certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy as they have in Iraq, I can tell you quite honestly.

I ask myself whether Russia is moving in the direction of democracy. I don't believe it is! Bit by bit, Russia is slipping back into an authoritarian empire.

I realized that democracy is indivisible, or rather, that freedom is indivisible. There are many clown-democracies in the Arab world, which have nothing to do with freedom.

A democratic despotism is like a theocracy: it assumes its own correctness.

Putting it as strongly as I can, the failure to give free airtime for our political campaigns endangers our democracy.

One unanswered question is whether a Euro-Islam that combines Islam with democracy will be possible in the future. We mustn't confuse desire with reality.

A democracy which fails to concentrate authority in an emergency inevitably falls into such confusion that the ground is prepared for the rise of a dictator.

Democracy is always the work of kings. Ashes, which in themselves are sterile, fertilize the land they are cast upon.

A mercantile democracy may govern long and widely; a mercantile aristocracy cannot stand.

The nature of democracy is such that when there's - there'll be revulsion, obviously, towards - that's never going to happen again.

An independent and free media is essential to ensure democracy.

I wrote the tunes. I was the driving force. The rest were quite happy just to go along with things. But it was more of a democracy then.

Socialism as I understand it is a system of democracy. Without democracy, there is no socialism.

The republic which sinks to sleep, trusting to constitutions and machinery, to politicians and statesmen, for the safety of its liberties, never will have any.

It 's really hard to impose democracy. It has to emerge naturally. You have to get out of the way and let it happen.

From Samuel Adams to Patrick Henry to Benjamin Franklin to Alexander Hamilton, all the Founders intended religion to provide a moral anchor for our liberty in democracy.

I do not think an enormous permanent underclass is a very good thing to have if you're attempting to operate something that at least pretends sometimes to be a democracy.

Democracy is held captive, not just by money, but by ideas - the ideas that money buys.

The problem of modern democracy is rooted in its neglect of unorganized people.

Americans cannot teach democracy to the world until they restore their own.

We must continue to deepen our ties to the Americas and the Caribbean, our common work to educate children, fight drugs, strengthen democracy, and increase trade.

We must fortify African democracy and peace by launching Radio Democracy for Africa, supporting the transition to democracy now beginning to take place in Nigeria.

Our democracy must be not only the envy of the world but the engine of our own renewal. There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.

[They let] friendship with the leaders in China obscure our devotion to freedom and democracy when those kids set up in Tiananmen Square, and I think it was wrong.

Democracy does not have to be a bloodsport, it can be an honorable enterprise that advances the public interest.

Ultimately, the best strategy to ensure our security and to build a durable peace is to support the advance of democracy elsewhere. Democracies don't attack each other.

Europeans believe in democracy - or, at least, in republican government - but they have considered the alternatives, and continue to do so, and that scandalizes Americans.

One of the most important signs of the existence of a democracy is that when there is a knock at the door at 5 in the morning, one is completely certain that it is the milkman.