Democracy Quotes - Page 25

• The truest test of a democracy is in the ability of anyone to act as he likes, so long as he does not injure the life or property of anyone else.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Long, Doe, Tests

  Mahatma Gandhi (1967). “The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi”, p.347, Rajpal & Sons

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• Democracy, as I understand it, requires me to sacrifice myself for the masses, not to them. Who knows not that if you would save the people, you must often oppose them?

  John C. Calhoun

  Sacrifice, People, Understanding

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• I don't know whether it's age or maturity, but I certainly find myself committed more and more to the looser forms of Western democracy at any price.

  John le Carre

  Maturity, Age, Literature

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• 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

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• How do we protect the soul of democracy against bad theology in service of an imperial state?

  Bill Moyers

  Political, Soul, States

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• America is an outlier in the world of democracies when it comes to the structure and conduct of elections.

  Thomas E. Mann

  America, World, Election

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• On why I don't trust democracy without extremely powerful systems of accountability and recall What seems to be generosity is often only disguised ambition - which despises small interests to gain great ones.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Powerful, Ambition, Generosity

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• They say it's the responsibility of the media to look at government - especially the President - with a microscope. I don't argue with that, but when they use a proctoscope, it's going too far.

  Richard M. Nixon

  Responsibility, Government, Media

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• I would not like to be a political leader in Russia. They never know when they're being taped.

  Richard M. Nixon

  Russia, Leader, Political

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• On the much revered family of North American mythology - and a metaphor for the Ruling Alliance:
  Sacred family! .... The supposed home of all the virtues, where innocent children are tortured into their first falsehoods, where wills are broken by parental tyranny, and self-respect smothered by crowded, jostling egos.

  August Strindberg

  Children, Home, Self

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• The rule of law should be respected so that the basic structure of our democracy is maintained and further strengthened.

  Lal Bahadur Shastri

  Law, Structure, Should

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• In a democracy only will the freeman of nature design to dwell.

  Plato

  Military, Design, Freeman

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• The threats against democracy today are in general completely normal. They walk around in costume and tie.

  Carl B. Hamilton

  Ties, Today, Costumes

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• More often than not "fair" and "balanced" may be mutually exclusive

  Neal Gabler

  May, Balanced, Fairs

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• Democracy is better than tyranny.

  Periander

  Military, Tyranny

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• We have come a long way in America because of Martin Luther King, Jr. He led a disciplined, nonviolent revolution under the rule of law, a revolution of values, a revolution of ideas. We've come a long way, but we still have a distance to go before all of our citizens embrace the idea of a truly interracial democracy, what I like to call the Beloved Community, a nation at peace with itself.

  John Lewis

  Kings, Distance, Beloved Community

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• Good, law-abiding, value-oriented citizens are the ultimate in hypocrisy; "majority rules" and the law are exactly the same as being the biggest bully on the block with the biggest stick-it is only might that allows one group to force another to live by its code of conduct.

  William J. Murray

  Block, Law, Majority Rule

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• Democracy is no solution - it's just 51% bossing the other 49% around. For God's sake, Hitler was democratically elected! Democracy is just mob rule dressed up in a coat and tie.

  Doug Casey

  Ties, Sake, Mob Rule

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• The proper response toward what we occasionally imagine to be democracy, methinks, is to retain one's self-respect by not participating in it.

  Fred Reed

  Self, Imagine, Response

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• Democracy, or "majority rules," is another trick of our society to force us to do things we don't want to do. Even if we actually lived in a pure democracy (and the system we do live in is not even close), where everyone got a single vote on every subject, forcing the minority to obey the majority is no different to one man, if he had the power, forcing everyone else to do what he wanted them to-simply because he could.

  William J. Murray

  Men, Majority Rule, Want

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• Why is acquiescence to the numerous viewed as better servitude than bowing to might?

  William J. Murray

  Acquiescence, Might, Servitude

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• Globilization in its current form cannot deliver the benefits expected of it. Civil society, particularly in developing countries, must ensure that it does.

  Martin Khor

  Country, Expectations, Developing Countries

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• And a democracy, I suppose, comes into being when the poor, winning the victory, put to death some of the other party, drive out others, and grant the rest of the citizens an equal share in both citizenship and offices.

  Plato

  Party, Winning, Office

  Plato (1935). “The Republic”

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• We do not know what is being done in our name. Worse, we do not ask.

  Ben Ehrenreich

  Names, Done, Knows

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• Puritanism, believing itself quick with the seed of religious liberty, laid, without knowing it, the egg of democracy.

  James Russell Lowell

  Religious, Believe, Eggs

  James Russell Lowell (1870). “Among My Books: Six Essays”, p.227

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