Quotes on Democracy

We need to get beyond the politics of the moment, the deficit of the hour, the military count of the day, the numbers that rarely shape events. Our long-term interests must be in people and in the values of democracy and individual liberty.

If democracy brings an undemocratic group to power, is that a victory for democracy?

[In a republic,] it is not the people themselves who make the decisions, but the people they themselves choose to stand in their places.

Democracy and socialism are means to an end, not the end itself.

If we don't have access to facts, we can't trust each other. Without trust, there's no law. Without law, there's no democracy.

My people are going to learn the principles of democracy, the dictates of truth and the teachings of science. Superstition must go.

Where you see wrong or inequality or injustice, speak out, because this is your country. This is your democracy. Make it. Protect it. Pass it on.

Candor and accountability in a democracy is very important. Hypocrisy has no place.

The Constitution is worth saving, the rule of law is worth saving, democracy is worth saving, but these things can and will be lost if everyone waits around for someone else.

India was the motherland of our race, and Sanskrit the mother of Europe's languages: she was the mother of our philosophy; mother, through the Arabs, of much of our mathematics; mother, through the Buddha, of the ideals embodied in Christianity; mother, through the village community, of self-government and democracy. Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all.

Democracy, to maintain itself, must repeatedly conquer every cell and corner of the nation. How many of our public institutions and private businesses, our schools, hospitals, and domestic hearths are in reality little fascist states where freedom of speech is more rigorously excluded than vermin?

Neutral men are the devil's allies.

The best defence [for a democracy, for the public good] is aggressiveness, the aggressiveness of the involved citizen. We need to reassert that slow, time-consuming, inefficient, boring process that requires our involvement; it is called 'being a citizen.' The public good is not something that you can see. It is not static. It is a process. It is the process by which democratic civilizations build themselves.

When Bush says democracy, I often wonder what he's referring to.

Iraq is just a symbol of the attitude of western democracies to the rest of the world.

There does not have to be trade-off between growth and social protection. A democracy does not mean much if it doesn't respond to the needs and will of its people.

For too long, too many people dependent on Social Security have been cruelly frightened by individuals seeking political gain through demagoguery and outright falsehood, and this must stop.

Our public life withers when only the most extreme voices get attention. Most of all, democracy breaks down when the average person feels their voice doesn't matter; that the system is rigged in favor of the rich or the powerful or some narrow interest.

America must begin the struggle for democracy at home. The advocacy of free elections in Europe by American officials is hypocrisy when free elections are not held in great sections of America.

I can't let my mother's death have been in vain. Democracy is the best revenge, and we will have it.

In contrast to totalitarianism, democracy can face and live with the truth about itself.