Explore Quotes on Democracy

The ship of Democracy, which has weathered all storms, may sink through the mutiny of those aboard.

We should seek international support for our mutual objectives abroad, in promoting freedom, democracy, respect for human rights, and also the elimination of weapons of mass destruction.

That's what separates out American democracy from dictators and horrible governments across the world and the reason why that works is that we have a president that can consult with congress before making big decisions. That doesn't just make a unilateral decision to go in for military conflict.

This election result has increased people's faith in democracy.

The most effective way to restrict democracy is to transfer decision-making from the public arena to unaccountable institutions: kings and princes, priestly castes, military juntas, party dictatorships, or modern corporations.

Democracy must stand or fall on a platform of possible human perfectibility. If human nature cannot be improved by institutions, democracy is at best a more than usually safe form of political organization . . . . But if it is to work better as well as merely longer, it must have some leavening effect on human nature; and the sincere democrat is obliged to assume the power of the leaven. [Progressive]

Obamacare is a crime against democracy.

The totalitarian states can do great things, but there is one thing they cannot do: they cannot give the factory-worker a rifle and tell him to take it home and keep it in his bedroom. That rifle, hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or laborer's cottage, is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there.

That's what American democracy has come down to at these town hall meetings: old people and gun nuts, which is a terrible combination. I heard somebody yell 'AK-47!' and a lady yelled, 'Bingo!'

People who object to weapons aren't abolishing violence, they're begging for rule by brute force, when the biggest, strongest animals among men were always automatically 'right.' Guns ended that, and social democracy is a hollow farce without an armed populace to make it work.

The survival of democracy depends on the renunciation of violence and the development of nonviolent means to combat evil and advance the good.

The Constitution of the United States was made not merely for the generation that then existed, but for posterity- unlimited, undefined, endless, perpetual posterity.

But democracy is by no means a limit one may not overstep; it is only one of the stages in the course of development from feudalism to capitalism, and from capitalism to Communism.

...the first step in the revolution by the working class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle for democracy.

If the great story of the last century was the conflict among various political ideologies-communism, fascism and democracy-then the great narrative of this century will be the changes wrought by astonishing scientific breakthroughs

Beware of charisma . . . Representative Men; was Ralph Waldo Emerson's 1850 phrase for the great men in a democracy . . . Is there some common quality among these Representative Men who have been most successful as our leaders? I call it the need to be authentic-or, as our dictionaries tell us, conforming to fact and therefore worthy of trust, reliance or belief. While the charismatic has an uncanny outside source of strength, the authentic is strong because he is what he seems to be.

The test of a democracy is not the magnificence of buildings or the speed of automobiles or the efficiency of air transportation, but rather the care given to the welfare of all the people.

The world is always a democracy in times of flux, and the man with the best voice will win.

I still have great faith in democracy. I have great belief in the power of community.

Why does the UK government ignore workplace bullying? Our system of democracy - government and law - is based on the adversarial model. To be successful in these fields, bullying behaviour is almost a prerequisite.

Liberalism and Western-style democracy have not been able to help realize the ideals of humanity. Today these two concepts have failed. Those with insight can already hear the sounds of the shattering and fall of the ideology and thoughts of the liberal democratic systems.