Democracy Quotes - Page 23

• Well, I think by any expectation South Africa has come a tremendously long way. We've seen a society that many people thought couldn't withstand a peaceful transition to democracy without a great deal of violence, in fact, make that transition and do it in relative peace and security.

  Susan Rice

  Thinking, Long, People

  "Road to Riches". Interview with Mishal Husain, www.pbs.org. August 28, 2003.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values.

  Barack Obama

  Religion, Demand, Motivated

  Barack Obama (2009). “Barack Obama: Speeches on the Road to the White House”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• We should insist that governments receiving American aid live up to standards of accountability and transparency, and we should support countries that embrace market reforms, democracy, and the rule of law.

  Lee H. Hamilton

  Country, Law, Government

  8 Copy quote

• America is a land of wonders, in which everything is in constant motion and every change seems an improvement. No natural boundary seems to be set to the efforts of man; and in his eyes what is not yet done is only what he has not attempted to do. - from Democracy in America

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Change, Eye, Men

  Alexis de Tocqueville, Henry Reeve, Francis Bowen, Patrick Renshaw (1998). “Democracy in America”, p.167, Wordsworth Editions

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is possible for a dictator to govern in a liberal way. And it is also possible for a democracy to govern with a total lack of liberalism. Personally I prefer a liberal dictator to democratic government lacking liberalism.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Government, Way, Dictator

  "El Mercurio" Newspaper, 1981.

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• Muhammad brought down from heaven and put into the Koran not religious doctrines only, but political maxims, criminal and civil laws, and scientific theories. The Gospels  on the other hand, deal only with the general relations between man and God and between man and man. Beyond that, they teach nothing and do not oblige people to believe anything. That alone, among a thousand reasons, is enough to show that Islam will not be able to hold its power long in ages of enlightenment and democracy, while Christianity is destined to reign in such ages, as in all others.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Religious, Believe, Men

  "Democracy in America". Book by Alexis de Tocqueville, Volume II. Book One, Chapter V, 1840.

  66 Copy quote

  Show source

• Democracy -- rule by the people -- sounds like a fine thing; we should try it sometime in America.

  Edward Abbey

  America, People, Trying

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.17, RosettaBooks

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• The art of government is the organization of idolatry. The bureaucracy consists of functionaries; the aristocracy, of idols; the democracy, of idolaters. The populace cannot understand the bureaucracy: it can only worship the national idols.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Art, Government, Idols

  Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists: Idolatry"

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The [Nazi party] should not become a constable of public opinion, but must dominate it. It must not become a servant of the masses, but their master!

  Adolf Hitler

  Military, Party, Public Opinion

  66 Copy quote

• Sycophancy toward those who hold power is a fact in every regime, and especially in a democracy, where, unlike tyranny, there is an accepted principle of legitimacy that breaks the inner will to resist.... Flattery of the people and incapacity to resist public opinion are the democratic vices, particularly among writers, artists, journalists and anyone else who is dependent on an audience.

  Allan Bloom

  Artist, People, Facts

  Allan Bloom (2008). “Closing of the American Mind”, p.249, Simon and Schuster

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• Teaching, may I say, is the noblest profession of all in a democracy.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Teaching, May, Profession

  Kurt Vonnegut (2013). “If This Isn't Nice, What Is?: Advice for the Young”, p.31, RosettaBooks

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I admire Russia for wiping out an economic system which permitted a handful of rich to exploit and beat gold from the millions of plain people…. As one who believes in freedom and democracy for all, I honor the Red nation.

  Frank Marshall Davis

  Believe, Russia, People

  15 Copy quote

• Democracy is direct self-government over all the people, for all the people, by all the people.

  Theodore Parker

  Self, Government, People

  Sermon at Music Hall, Boston, Mass., 4 July 1858 See Lincoln 42; Theodore Parker 1; Daniel Webster 5

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The people made the Constitution, and the people can unmake it. It is the creature of their own will, and lives only by their will.

  John Marshall

  People, Constitution Of The United States, Made

  John Marshall, Joseph Potter Cotton (2000). “The Constitutional Decisions of John Marshall”, p.417, The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.

  71 Copy quote

  Show source

• For 60 years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region, here in the Middle East, and we achieved neither.

  Condoleezza Rice

  Country, Years, Middle East

  "For Albright and Rice, Josef Korbel Is Tie that Binds". "All Things Considered" with Melissa Block, Michele Norris, Guy Raz, www.npr.org. June 28, 2006.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It would perhaps be as well if things were to remain quiet for a few years yet, so that all this 1848 democracy has time to rot away.

  Karl Marx

  Democracies Have, Years, Quiet

  7 Copy quote

• Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end; where all men and all churches are treated as equal; where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice; where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind; and where Catholics, Protestants and Jews, at both the lay and pastoral level, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood.

  John F. Kennedy

  Religious, Attitude, Believe

  Address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, delivered 12 September 1960 at the Rice Hotel in Houston, TX

  61 Copy quote

  Show source

• Welcome to Israel, where chanting “Death to Arabs” is democracy, running over children is equality, and firing on funerals is peace.

  Remi Kanazi

  Death, Running, Peace

  9 Copy quote

• I have seen, and I know firsthand, indeed from my own pen, how the organized Right has sabotaged not only journalism but also democracy and truth.

  David Brock

  Journalism, Organized, My Own

  David Brock (2004). “The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy”, p.20, Crown

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Democracy is still upon its trial. The civic genius of our people is its only bulwark.

  William James

  People, Genius, Trials

  William James (2012). “Memories and Studies”, p.33, The Floating Press

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• If we can implant in our people the Christian virtues which we sum up in the word character, and, at the same time, give them a knowledge of the line which should be drawn between voluntary action and governmental compulsion in a democracy, and of what can be accomplished within the stern laws of economics, we will enable them to retain their freedom, and at the same time, make them worthy to be free.

  Winthrop W. Aldrich

  Christian, Freedom, Character

  5 Copy quote

• We do not understand democracy in its bourgeois meaning--of babbling, lack of discipline, anarchy. We understand democracy as the active participation of the citizens in formulating and implementing the Party's policy.

  Nicolae Ceausescu

  Party, Discipline, Citizens

  59 Copy quote

• Law matters, because it keeps us safe, because it protects our most fundamental rights and freedoms, and because it is the foundation of our democracy.

  Elena Kagan

  Rights, Law, Safe

  Speech on Being Nominated to Serve as U.S. Supreme Court Justice, delivered 10 May 2010

  51 Copy quote

  Show source

• Recreation is not a secondary concern for a democracy. It is a primary concern, for the kind of recreation a people make for themselves determines the kind of people they become and the kind of society they build.

  Harry Allen Overstreet

  Kindness, People, Recreation

  13 Copy quote

• Technically, the city of Ankh-Morpork is a Tyranny, which is not always the same thing as a monarchy, and in fact even the post of Tyrant has been somewhat redefined by the incumbent, Lord Vetinari, as the only form of democracy that works. Everyone is entitled to vote, unless disqualified by reason of age or not being Lord Vetinari.

  Terry Pratchett

  Cities, Tyrants, Age

  Stephen Briggs, Terry Pratchett (2015). “Unseen Academicals”, p.13, Oberon Books

  54 Copy quote

  Show source