Explore Quotes on Democracy

It should be the power of our vote, not the size of our bank accounts, that drives our democracy

You can't be a full participant in our democracy if you don't know our history.

Conversation would be vastly improved by the constant use of four simple words: I do not know.

If we want to cultivate a true spirit of democracy we cannot afford to be intolerant. Intolerance betrays want of faith in one's cause.

The modern university does not exist to teach alone...It exists also to serve the democracy of which it is a product and an ornament...The university rests on the public will and on public appreciation.

Without enough wilderness America will change. Democracy, with its myriad personalities and increasing sophistication, must be fibred and vitalized by regular contact with outdoor growths - animals, trees, sun warmth and free skies - or it will dwindle and pale.

The government of man should be the monarchy of reason: it is too often the democracy of passions or the anarchy of humors.

Democracy is nothing more than an experiment in government, more likely to succeed in a new soil, but likely to be tried in all soils, which must stand or fall on its own merits as others have done before it. For there is no trick of perpetual motion in politics any more than in mechanics.

It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.

In Democracy, man exploits man; in Communism, it's the other way round.

Communism needs democracy like the human body needs oxygen.

Sooner or later a democracy which is to survive has to be able to rely upon that enlargement of vision and purpose of those individuals who compose it, which means that their craving for devotion and self-sacrifice is satisfied in a democratic society on a nobler level, and with a finer recognition of the value of individual personality than is true of a national purpose of a totalitarian state under a dictator.

There cannot be true democracy unless women's voices are heard. There cannot be true democracy unless women are given the opportunity to take responsibility for their own lives.

Democracy can only spring from within a nation itself, only from the hearts and minds of its people.

Every nation has its war party. It is not the party of democracy. It is the party of autocracy. It seeks to dominate absolutely.

The human heart is the first home of democracy. It is where we embrace our questions: Can we be equitable? Can we be generous? Can we listen with our whole beings, not just our minds, and offer our attention rather than our opinion? And do we have enough resolve in our hearts to act courageously, relentlessly, without giving up, trusting our fellow citizens to join us in our determined pursuit-a living democracy?

I always believe that ultimately, if people are paying attention, then we get good government and good leadership. And when we get lazy, as a democracy and civically start taking shortcuts, then it results in bad government and politics.

Neither democracy nor effective representation is possible until each participant in the group...devotes a measurable part of his life to furthering its existence.

Full democracy requires the full participation of women. Your voices are vital. The word 'vital' means necessary for life. A democracy, to be fully alive, must include all its citizens.

Democracy is the most demanding of all forms of government in terms of the energy, imagination, and public spirit required of the individual.

In my view this is not democracy, but a zoo.... It was exactly what we expected, but not on that scale nor in that form. In a word, it was nothing but a zoo, you can't put it better