Democracies Have Quotes - Page 3

• If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Education, Freedom, War

  Letter to Colonel Charles Yancey, 6 January 1816

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• Naturally, the common people don't want war ... but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.

  Hermann Goring

  Country, Peace, Military

  Interview in Göring's jail cell, April 18, 1946. "Nuremberg Diary". Book by Gustave Gilbert, 1947.

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  Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Trust, Time, Government

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.235, Cambridge University Press

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• The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.

  Edmund Burke

  Wisdom, Freedom, Giving Up

  Speech at County Meeting of Buckinghamshire, 1784

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• Laws provide against injury from others; but not from ourselves.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Freedom, Law, Democracy

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence 1771 - 1779, the Summary View, and the Declaration of Independence”, p.263, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Democratic institutions form a system of quarantine for tyrannical desires.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Freedom, Democracy, Desire

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• The aim of education is to enable individuals to continue their education ... (and) the object and reward of learning is continued capacity for growth. Now this idea cannot be applied to all the members of a society except where intercourse of man with man is mutual, and except where there is adequate provision for the reconstruction of social habits and institutions by means of wide stimulation arising from equitably distributed interests. And this means a democratic society.

  John Dewey

  Change, Education, Mean

  John Dewey (2012). “Democracy and Education”, p.96, Courier Corporation

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• Education is a human right with immense power to transform. On its foundation rest the cornerstones of freedom, democracy and sustainable human development.

  Kofi Annan

  Education, Teaching, Democracy

  FaceBook post by Kofi Annan from Jun 03, 2016

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• In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme.

  Aristotle

  Power, Democracy, Majority

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• Democracy means government by discussion, but it is only effective if you can stop people talking.

  Clement Attlee

  Freedom, Mean, Government

  Speech at Oxford, 14 June 1957, in The Times 15 June 1957

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• Those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

  C. S. Lewis

  Tyrants, Libertarian Party, Government

  C. S. Lewis (2014). “God in the Dock”, p.324, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

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  Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Patriotic, Equality, Differences

  "Discours prononcé à l'assemblée constituante le 12 Septembre 1848 sur la question du droit au travail". Oeuvres complètes, Volume IX, p. 546, 1866.

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• What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.

  James Madison

  Nature, Patriotic, Angel

  1788 The Federalist, Jan.

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• Elections belong to the people. It's their decision.

  Abraham Lincoln

  People, Voting, Decision

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• Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.

  James Bovard

  Humor, Two, Sheep

  James Bovard (2016). “Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty”, p.333, St. Martin's Griffin

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  America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Wisdom, Religious, Freedom

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• The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.

  Robert M. Hutchins

  Freedom, Patriotic, Diversity

  Great Books of the Western World vol. 1, ch. 10 (1952)

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• As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Wisdom, Freedom, Humor

  "Definition of Democracy," ca. 1 Aug. 1858

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• Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.

  James Russell Lowell

  Freedom, Men, Giving

  The Biglow Papers, Second Series, "Ef I a song or two could make" l. 97 (1867)

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  If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

  James Madison

  Inspirational, Freedom, Fear

  "The Last Enemy" by Rebecca Sato, www.pbs.org. November 11, 2010.

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• They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Inspirational, Happiness, Peace

  Benjamin Franklin, William-Temple Franklin (1818). “Memoirs of the Life and Writings of (the Same), Continued to the Time of His Death by William Temple Franklin. - London, H. Colburn 1818”, p.270

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• The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeois.

  Gustave Flaubert

  Dream, Freedom, Stupid

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• You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Freedom, Order, Historical

  "Tremendous Trifles" by Gilbert K. Chesterton, Ch. 12, (p. 63), 1955.

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  We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Wisdom, Country, Power

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• What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Inspirational, Peace, War

  Non-Violence in Peace and War (1942) vol. 1, ch. 142

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