Democratic Society Quotes - Page 5

• In a democratic society, the only treason is silence.

  Anna Quindlen

  Silence, Democratic, Treason

  Anna Quindlen (2004). “Loud and Clear”, p.102, Random House

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• I believe that one of the most important institutions in a democratic society is a free press.

  Jeremy Scahill

  Believe, Important, Institutions

  Source: collider.com

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• Sweden is still a very peaceful country to live in. I think that people in Britain have created this mythology about Sweden, that it's a perfect democratic society full of erotically charged girls.

  Henning Mankell

  Girl, Country, Thinking

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• Our democratic societies are in danger. In allowing ourselves to be infiltrated by fear, to be blinded by the passion of identity, we are entertaining the most serious illusions about our freedom.

  Tariq Ramadan

  Passion, Identity, Serious

  "Calming our fears" by Tariq Ramadan, www.theguardian.com. January 2, 2007.

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• I still oppose "Visit Myanmar Year," and I would ask tourists to stay away. Burma is not going to run away. They should come back to Burma at a time when it is a democratic society where people are secure - where there is justice, where there is rule of law. They'll have a much better time. And they can travel around Burma with a clear conscience.

  Aung San Suu Kyi

  Running, Years, Law

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• Honesty . . . is the foundation upon which relationships and many societies are built. Without it . . . there can be no trust. Widespread lying destroys the fabric of democratic societies, in which the necessary assumption is that people mostly tell the truth.

  Janny Scott

  Honesty, Lying, People

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• [Felix Frankfurter] said courts are not representative bodies. They're not designed to be a good reflex of a democratic society. Their judgment is best informed and, therefore, most dependable within narrow limits.

  Sam Brownback

  Body, Limits, Judgment

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

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• I say from time to time that the vote is precious. It's almost sacred. It is the most powerful nonviolent tool or instrument that we have in a democratic society. And we must use it.

  John Lewis

  Powerful, Tools, Use

  "The Long March Of John Lewis". Interview with Jamil Smith, www.mtv.com. August 5, 2016.

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• All religions try to benefit people, with the same basic message of the need for love and compassion, for justice and honesty, for contentment. So merely changing formal religious affiliations will often not help much. On the other hand, in pluralistic, democratic societies, there is the freedom to adopt the religion of your choice. This is good. This lets curious people like you run around on the loose!

  Dalai Lama

  Running, Religious, Honesty

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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• I've always lived in a democratic society.

  Pierre Trudeau

  Democratic

  Source: presbyterianrecord.ca

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• That's where we all kind of were in the mid-1960s. Students for a Democratic Society grew from a small group of socialists at the university of Michigan into a national organization, and in many ways, its growth was driven by the Vietnam War.

  Bill Ayers

  War, Organization, Growth

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• [ Alexis de] Tocqueville said it in 1835, and it's as true today as it was then: 'Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot. Religion is more needed in democratic societies than in any other.'

  Paul Kengor

  Liberty, May, Today

  Source: www.visionandvalues.org

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• The sibling society is the flattening out of the previously democratic society.

  Robert Bly

  Sibling, Democratic

  Source: www.utne.com

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• All of those on the left, as I am, have always vastly preferred the democratic society over the hierarchical society and still do, but the democratic culture doesn't exist without highly informed citizens capable of thinking well, and if you have schools in which 40 percent of the people coming out of them cannot make change for a dollar, you don't have a democracy. You have a sibling society.

  Robert Bly

  Sibling, School, Thinking

  Source: www.utne.com

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• Good, healthy democratic societies are built on three pillars: there's peace and stability, economic development, and respect for rule of law and human rights. And where all three are present, you stand a very good chance of making a go of it.

  Kofi Annan

  Rights, Law, Healthy

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• Now the ordinary Protestant, Jew or Secularist has a stereotype about Catholicism. It consists of Spanish Catholicism, Latin-American Catholicism and, let us say, a Catholicism of O'Connor's "Great Hurrah." Now there are types of Catholicism like that but this doesn't - this doesn't do justice to the genuine relation that Catholicism has had to Democratic Society.

  Reinhold Niebuhr

  Latin, Justice, Ordinary

  Source: www.hrc.utexas.edu

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• I was resolved to sustain and preserve in my college the bite of the mind, the chance to stand face to face with truth, the good life lived in a small, various, highly articulate and democratic society.

  Virginia Gildersleeve

  Good Life, College, Mind

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• One needs to know what the hierarchy of values are from which one takes inspiration, and in a democratic society this is the subject of continuous democratic debate.

  Rocco Buttiglione

  Inspiration, Needs, Hierarchy

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• In our democratic society, the library stands for hope, for learning, for progress, for literacy, for self-improvement and for civic engagement. The library is a symbol of opportunity, citizenship, equality, freedom of speech and freedom of thought, and hence, is a symbol for democracy itself.

  Vartan Gregorian

  Opportunity, Self, Freedom Of Speech

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• Democratic societies can no longer give religious fanatics a free hand to abuse and murder non believers. Such action betrays contempt for the basic human rights which animate any democracy with meaning.

  Armstrong Williams

  Religious, Rights, Hands

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• With Taiwan, it took about 40 years to go from an authoritarian to a democratic society.

  Ma Ying-jeou

  Years, Taiwan, Democratic

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• The fact is that the average man's love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary, exactly like his love of sense, justice and truth... Liberty is not a thing for the great masses of men. It is the exclusive possession of a small and disreputable minority, like knowledge, courage and honor. It takes a special sort of man to understand and enjoy liberty - and he is usually an outlaw in democratic societies.

  H. L. Mencken

  Love, Courage, Men

  "The Baltimore Sun" Newspaper, February 12, 1923.

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• Citizens of the democratic societies should undertake a course of intellectual self defense to protect themselves from manipulation and control, and to lay the basis for meaningful democracy.

  Noam Chomsky

  Meaningful, Self, Intellectual

  Noam Chomsky (1989). “Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies”, p.8, Pluto Press

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• We must face the ultimate contradiction that our free and democratic society was made possible by massive slave labor.

  David Brion Davis

  Slave Labor, Faces, Contradiction

  David Brion Davis (2008). “Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World”, p.6, Oxford University Press

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• I don't see anything immoral, unethical or illegal for a person in a democratic society to be able to spend their own money on the health care of themself or a loved one.

  Brian Day

  Care, Able, Loved Ones

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