Democracy Quotes:

I take a grave view of the press. It is the weak slat under the bed of democracy

- A. J. Liebling

topic: Freedom, Views, Democracy, Media Control

Campaign may invite a certain skepticism about democracy, but it will surely restore your faith in cinema verite.

- A. O. Scott

topic: Democracy, Campaigns, Cinema

Those who deplore our militants, who exhort patience in the name of a false peace, are in fact supporting segregation and exploitation. They would have social peace at the expense of social and racial justice. They are more concerned with easing racial tension than enforcing racial democracy.

- A. Philip Randolph

topic: Names, Justice, Democracy, Racial Justice, Racial Tension

We want the full works of citizenship with no reservations. We will accept nothing less . . . This condition of freedom, equality, and democracy is not the gift of gods. It is the task of men, yes, men, brave men, honest men, determined men.

- A. Philip Randolph

topic: Men, Brave, Democracy, No Reservations

Winning Democracy for the Negro is winning the war for Democracy

- A. Philip Randolph

topic: War, Winning, Democracy

You measure a democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists.

- Abbie Hoffman

source: Tikkun magazine, July-August 1989.

topic: Freedom, Giving, Democracy, Dissidents, Democracy Freedom

Democracy is not something you believe in or a place to hang your hat, but it's something you do. You participate. If you stop doing it, democracy crumbles.

- Abbie Hoffman

source: Abbie Hoffman (2009). “Revolution for the Hell of It: The Book That Earned Abbie Hoffman a Five-Year Prison Term at the Chicago Conspiracy Trial”, Da Capo Press

topic: Freedom, Believe, Democracy

My critique of democracy begins and ends with this point. Kids must be educated to disrespect authority or else democracy is a farce.

- Abbie Hoffman

source: "Soon to be a Major Motion Picture". Book by Abbie Hoffman, p. 64, 1980.

topic: Kids, Disrespect, Democracy

Democracy is constructed like an edifice, freedom by freedom, right by right, until it reaches its snapping point.

- Abdoulaye Wade

topic: Freedom, Democracy, Snapping, Democracy Freedom, Edifice

Democracy can be sustained and developed only by people who understand its essence.

- Abdurrahman Wahid

topic: Essence, People, Democracy

I told the students that we can exert pressure without resorting to violence, and that we can move towards democracy without violence; that way, God will allow it.

- Abdurrahman Wahid

topic: Moving, Democracy, Way

growth requires purposeful division. Responsible dissent is the essence of democracy.

- Abigail McCarthy

topic: Essence, Growth, Democracy

Democracy is "government of, by and for the people".

- Abraham Lincoln

topic: Government, People, Democracy

The goal of a great democracy should be fulfillment, not ease. It should be adequacy, not serenity.

- Abram L. Sachar

topic: Goal, Serenity, Democracy, Adequacy

We have shown that Islam can rule the world perfectly for 14 centuries, and during this time of Muslim power we did not borrow ideas like democracy from others, so why do we need to learn democracy from them now?

- Abu Bakar Bashir

source: "'We Should Not Fear Being Called Radical'". Interview with Farish A. Noor, theseoultimes.com.

topic: Ideas, Islam, Democracy

As a rule, dictatorships guarantee safe streets and terror of the doorbell. In democracy the streets may be unsafe after dark, but the most likely visitor in the early hours will be the milkman.

- Adam Michnik

topic: Freedom, Dark, Democracy, Milkman

We will not let terrorists change our way of life; we will not live in fear; and we will not undermine the civil liberties that characterize our Democracy.

- Adam Schiff

topic: Hippie, Democracy, Liberty

As citizens of this democracy, you are the rulers and the ruled, the law-givers and the law-abiding, the beginning and the end.

- Adlai E. Stevenson

topic: Law, Democracy, Abiding, Active Citizenship

Democracy, the deceitful theory that the Jew would insinuate - namely, that theory that all men are created equal.

- Adolf Hitler

topic: Men, Democracy, Deceitful

By rejecting the authority of the individual and replacing it by the numbers of some momentary mob, the parliamentary principle of majority rule sins against the basic aristocratic principle of Nature...

- Adolf Hitler

topic: Numbers, Democracy, Majority, Momentary, Rejecting

It is acknowledged, namely, that there are in the world three forms of government, autocracy, oligarchy, and democracy: autocracies and oligarchies are administered according to the tempers of their lords, but democratic states according to established laws.

- Aeschines

topic: Government, Law, Democracy, Oligarchy, Autocracy

Be assured, fellow citizens, that in a democracy it is the laws that guard the person of the citizen and the constitution of the state, whereas the despot and the oligarch find their protection in suspicion and in armed guards.

- Aeschines

topic: Law, Democracy, Citizens, Despots, Armed Guards

We cannot make the world safe for democracy unless we also make the world safe for diversity

- Aga Khan IV

source: Address by His Highness the Aga Khan to the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, May 15, 2006.

topic: Diversity, Democracy, World

We have forgotten that democracy must live as it thinks and think as it lives.

- Agnes Meyer Driscoll

topic: Thinking, Democracy, Forgotten

Democracy, material wealth, and universal education are the soil upon which modernism exists.

- Ai Weiwei

topic: Democracy, Soil, Wealth, Material Wealth, Universal Education

You cannot bring democracy to a country by attacking it.

- Akbar Ganji

topic: Country, Democracy, Attacking

The modern infrastructures that exists in the world all contribute to the advancement of human rights and democracy.

- Akbar Ganji

topic: Rights, Democracy, World

In our political system, money is power. And that means a few can have a lot more power than the rest. That's bad news for everyone else - and for our democracy itself.

- Al Franken

source: "Putting an End to Secret Campaign Contributions" by Al Franken, www.huffingtonpost.com. July 16, 2012.

topic: Mean, Political, Democracy

Take it from me - every vote counts. In our Democracy, every vote has power. And never forget - that power is yours. Don't let anyone take it away or talk you into throwing it away. And let's make sure that this time every vote is counted.

- Al Gore

topic: Democracy, Vote, Never Forget

All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.

- Al Smith

source: Speech in Albany, 27 June 1933, in New York Times 28 June 1933

topic: Democracy

In order to improve democracy, then, it's necessary to change the people, as Brecht ironically proposed.

- Alain Badiou

source: "Alain Badiou: a life in writing". Interview with Stuart Jeffries, www.theguardian.com. May 18, 2012.

topic: Order, People, Democracy, Brecht

The highest measure of democracy is neither the 'extent of freedom' nor the 'extent of equality', but rather the highest measure of participation.

- Alain de Benoist

topic: Freedom, Democracy, Participation

Public opinion is presumptively an input to policy formation in a democracy because politicians respond to it or at least are believed to respond [to it].

- Alan Blinder

topic: Democracy, Public Opinion, Input

Democracy is not about making speeches. It is about making committees work.

- Alan Bullock

source: "Lord Bullock of Leafield" by Mark Frankland, www.theguardian.com. February 3, 2004.

topic: Democracy, Speech, Committees

Democracy consists of choosing your dictators, after they've told you what you think it is you want to hear.

- Alan Coren

source: "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

topic: Freedom, Thinking, Democracy, Voting And Democracy

Most liberal democracies don't try to figure out what the truth is.

- Alan Dershowitz

topic: Democracy, Trying, Truth Is, Liberal Democracy

Laws are important precisely because in a democracy they reflect the attitudes and aspirations of those they govern.

- Alan Dershowitz

topic: Attitude, Law, Democracy

Democracy is not the law of the majority but the protection of the minority.

- Albert Camus

topic: Law, Democracy, Majority

Every revolutionary ends up either by becoming an oppressor or a heretic.

- Albert Camus

topic: Cynical, Political, Democracy

The thinking it took to get us into this mess is not the same thinking that is going to get us out of it.

- Albert Einstein

topic: Thinking, Democracy, Mess, Same Thinking

What we are doing in fact is recovering and progressing and sustaining the recovery of our democracy.

- Alberto Fujimori

topic: Recovery, Democracy, Progress, Sustaining

Dictatorships are one-way streets. Democracy boasts two-way traffic.

- Alberto Moravia

topic: Freedom, Two, Democracy

Generalized intelligence and mental alertness are the most powerful enemies of dictatorship and at the same time the basic conditions of effective democracy.

- Aldous Huxley

topic: Powerful, Enemy, Democracy, Alertness

Democracy can hardly be expected to flourish in societies where political and economic power is being progressively concentrated and centralized. But the progress of technology has led and is still leading to just such a concentration and centralization of power.

- Aldous Huxley

topic: Technology, Political, Democracy, Centralization, Economic Power

I knew my affection for the Philippines was equally as telling: a democracy on paper, apparently well ordered, regularly subverted by irrational chaos. A place where I'd felt instantly at home.

- Alex Garland

source: Alex Garland (2005). “The Beach”, p.155, Penguin

topic: Home, Democracy, Paper

Democracy is an experimental system. I like it when states try out new ideas. I think we ought to expand, not contract, our federalist system.

- Alex Tabarrok

topic: Thinking, Ideas, Democracy

Democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largesse out of the public treasure. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefit from the public treasury, with the result that democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy, always to be followed by a dictatorship, and then a monarchy.

- Alexander Fraser Tytler

topic: Government, Democracy, Majority, Largesse, Fiscal Policy

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until a majority of voters discover that they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury.

- Alexander Fraser Tytler

topic: Freedom, Government, Democracy, Majority Vote, Libertarianism

To declare the Cold War over, and declare democracy has won out over totalitarianism, is a measure of arrogance and wrong-headedness.

- Alexander Haig

topic: War, Arrogance, Democracy

If we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy.

- Alexander Hamilton

topic: Democracy, Too Much, Monarchy

The practice of arbitrary imprisonments have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.

- Alexander Hamilton

source: Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (2015). “The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution”, p.418, Coventry House Publishing

topic: Practice, Democracy, Age, Imprisonment

I don't believe in democracy by bayonet.

- Alexander Lebedev

topic: Believe, Democracy, Bayonets

Anybody who cares about the functioning of democracy should be concerned about the blurring of lines between public and private interests.

- Alexander Stille

source: Source: www.pbs.org

topic: Democracy, Who Cares, Lines

I'm tired of hearing it said that democracy doesn't work. Of course it doesn't work. We are supposed to work it.

- Alexander Woollcott

topic: Tired, Government, Democracy

The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colours breaking through.

- Alexis de Tocqueville

topic: Political, Democracy, Politics, Democracy In America, American Democracy

Austerity is not part of the European treaties; democracy and the principle of popular sovereignty are.

- Alexis Tsipras

topic: Democracy, Principles, Austerity, Popular Sovereignty

The experience of previous years leads to one conclusion: there is one morality in politics and another for economy. In the years since 1989, the morality of the economy has fully prevailed over the ethics of politics and democracy.

- Alexis Tsipras

topic: Years, Democracy, Ethics, Previous Years

Greece gave democracy to the rest of the world.

- Alexis Tsipras

source: "Greece is in danger of a humanitarian crisis". Interview with Helena Smith, www.theguardian.com. May 21, 2012.

topic: Democracy, World, Greece

Students should not only be trained to live in a democracy when they grow up; they should have the chance to live in one today.

- Alfie Kohn

topic: Growing Up, Democracy, Today

I think it is something that is so important, to be very aware of the direction in which the 21st century is going with all this blind faith in democracy. And by the way, I am not against democracy - I am against the blind faith that is being put in democracy.

- Alfonso Cuaron

topic: Thinking, Democracy, Important

Representative democracy frequently manifests a disconnect between parliamentarians and the people, so that parliamentarians have agendas that do not correspond with the wishes of the electorate. This has led in many countries to apathy, cynicism and large-scale absenteeism in elections. What is needed is not only parliaments, but parliamentarians who genuinely represent the wishes of the electorate.

- Alfred-Maurice de Zayas

topic: Country, People, Democracy, Electorate

Democracy is not the end product, but the means to the end, which is the enjoyment of human rights by all.

- Alfred-Maurice de Zayas

topic: Mean, Rights, Democracy

Islam and democracy can function together.

- Ali Babacan

topic: Islam, Democracy, Together

We women of America tell you that America is not a democracy. Twenty million women are denied the right to vote.

- Alice Paul

topic: America, Democracy, Twenties

How much ... did the volume of disease in a nation account for its spirit? If so, the eradication of sickness, as far as it was possible, was a responsibility a democracy must assume for its people.

- Alice Tisdale Hobart

topic: Responsibility, People, Democracy

Sycophancy toward those who hold power is a fact in every regime, and especially in a democracy, where, unlike tyranny, there is an accepted principle of legitimacy that breaks the inner will to resist.... Flattery of the people and incapacity to resist public opinion are the democratic vices, particularly among writers, artists, journalists and anyone else who is dependent on an audience.

- Allan Bloom

source: Allan Bloom (2008). “Closing of the American Mind”, p.249, Simon and Schuster

topic: Artist, People, Democracy

Democracy! Bah! When I hear that I reach for my feather boa!

- Allen Ginsberg

topic: Political, Democracy, Literature

Investigative reporting is the bone structure without which the journalistic body collapses. The Center for Public Integrity's constant and consistently enterprising investigative work is an invaluable contribution not only to journalism, but to society and to a healthy democracy

- Alma Guillermoprieto

topic: Integrity, Healthy, Democracy, Enterprising

No famine has ever taken place in the history of the world in a functioning democracy.

- Amartya Sen

source: Amartya Sen (2011). “The Idea of Justice”, p.343, Harvard University Press

topic: Taken, Democracy, World

A lot of young poets today, from what I've heard and experienced, can't get their heads past George W. Bush, and I've heard so many poems about this democracy and this era of politics that I'm kind of bored by it

- Amber Tamblyn

topic: Past, Bored, Democracy

Democracy is four wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.

- Ambrose Bierce

topic: Lunch, Voting, Democracy, Inspirational Voting, Liberal Democracy

Revolution, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.

- Ambrose Bierce

topic: Cynical, Democracy, Revolution, Revolutionary Change, Political Revolution

The only distinction that democracies reward is a high degree of conformity.

- Ambrose Bierce

topic: Democracy, Rewards, Degrees

The reality is that we are hated not because of our democracy, freedoms, and generous social security system; rather, we are hated because of our involvement in foreign conflicts and quarrels that were never our concern.

- Amir Butler

topic: Reality, Democracy, Conflict, Security Systems, Democracy Freedom

All of my novels are democracies.

- Amos Oz

topic: Democracy, Novel

In every well-governed state wealth is a sacred thing; in democracies it is the only sacred thing.

- Anatole France

topic: Democracy, Sacred, Wealth, Sacred Things

Communism destroys democracy. Democracy can also destroy Communism.

- Andre Malraux

topic: Democracy, Communism

There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration.

- Andrew Carnegie

topic: Office, Democracy, Library, Public Library

The Republic may not give wealth or happiness, she has not promised these. It is the freedom to pursue these, not their realization, we can claim.

- Andrew Carnegie

topic: Giving, Democracy, Realization

Who would have guessed that the monster of fraud was a democracy?

- Andrew Davidson

topic: Democracy, Monsters, Fraud

The life of a republic lies certainly in the energy, virtue, and intelligence of its citizens.

- Andrew Johnson

source: Andrew Johnson (1967). “The Papers of Andrew Johnson: September 1865-January 1866”, p.478, Univ. of Tennessee Press

topic: Lying, Democracy, Energy

What modernity requires is not that you cease living according to your faith, but that you accept that others may differ and that therefore politics requires a form of discourse that is reasonable and accessible to believer and non-believer alike. This religious restraint in politics is critical to the maintenance of liberal democracy.

- Andrew Sullivan

topic: Religious, Democracy, Maintenance, Liberal Democracy

Journalism is what maintains democracy. It's the force for progressive social change.

- Andrew Vachss

topic: Democracy, Journalism, Progressive

Some kind of affirmative action is important in a democracy and for economic competitiveness and national security. The Army was the first to realize that you had to have desegregation of a military to have it working properly.

- Andrew Young

topic: Military, Army, Democracy, Affirmative Action

To all the revolutionaries fighting to throw off the yoke of tyranny around the world: look at British democracy. Is that what you want?

- Andy Zaltzman

topic: Fighting, Democracy, Want

In Germany democracy died by the headman's axe. In Britain it can be by pernicious anaemia.

- Aneurin Bevan

topic: Insulting, Democracy, Germany, Anaemia

The worst thing I can say about democracy is that it has tolerated the Right Honorable Gentleman for four and a half years.

- Aneurin Bevan

topic: Years, Gentleman, Democracy

I believe profoundly in the possibilities of democracy, but democracy needs to be emancipated from capitalism. As long as we inhabit a capitalist democracy, a future of racial equality, gender equality, economic equality will elude us.

- Angela Davis

topic: Believe, Long, Democracy, Economic Equality, Racial Equality

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

- Angela Davis

topic: Democracy, Wonder

Democracy must be our answer to terrorism

- Angela Merkel

topic: Inspiring, Democracy, Answers

We still have a lot of work to do when it comes to democracy. We have political democracy but not economic democracy.

- Anker Jørgensen

topic: Political, Democracy, Economic

Global markets must be balanced by global values such as respect for human rights and international law, democracy, security and sustainable economic and environmental development.

- Anna Lindh

topic: Rights, Law, Democracy, International Law

democracy is dying. We are ruled by faceless bureaucrats and lecherous puritans. ... You think about it. 'All right for me but not for you' is their philosophy.

- Anne Stevenson

source: ANNE STEVENSON “A RELATIVE STRANGER\”

topic: Philosophy, Thinking, Democracy

Taiwan's democracy has grown very fast and we enjoy a certain degree of freedom, as other developed democracies like the United States.

- Annette Lu

topic: Democracy, Degrees, Taiwan

In 2005, I founded the Democratic Pacific Union, an international organization of 28 democratic countries to promote democracy, peace and prosperity in the Pacific region.

- Annette Lu

topic: Country, Organization, Democracy, Democratic Country, Pacific

Taiwan matters because of its vital role in spreading democracy in East Asia. Taiwan matters because of its strategic importance to promote peace in the Pacific region.

- Annette Lu

topic: Democracy, East, Roles, Pacific, East Asia

Only in England is the perversion of language regarded as a victory for democracy.

- Anthony Burgess

topic: America, Victory, Democracy

Having gathered all power to itself, [the State] has become the sole focus of all conflict, and it must construct totalitarian defences to match its total exposure.

- Anthony de Jasay

topic: Focus, Democracy, Conflict

Democracy is something that you must learn each generation. It has to be taught.

- Anthony Kennedy

topic: Democracy, Generations, Taught

Pure logic is the ruin of the spirit.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

topic: Math, Religion, Democracy, Reason And Logic

The absolute ruler may be a Nero, but he is sometimes a Titus or Marc Aurelius; the people is often Nero, but never Marc Aurelius.

- Antoine Rivarol

topic: People, Democracy, Nero

Advertising is the very essence of democracy.

- Anton Chekhov

topic: Essence, Democracy, Transcendentalism

But democracy isn't a state of perfection. It has to be improved, and that means constant vigilance.

- Antonio Tabucchi

topic: Mean, Perfection, Democracy

The great thing about our system of democracy is when they call you for jury duty, you have to come... It's an honor and a privilege. I was called and I've got to be here.

- Antonio Villaraigosa

topic: Honor, Democracy, Privilege, Jury, Jury Duty

It is democracy I am really suffering from as much as I am suffering from the opposition.

- Anwar Sadat

topic: Suffering, Democracy

Democracy is never a thing done. Democracy is always something that a nation must be doing.

- Archibald MacLeish

source: Archibald MacLeish (1941). “The American cause”

topic: Democracy, Done, Voting And Democracy, American Democracy

Democracy is never a thing done. Democracy is always something that a nation must be doing. What is necessary now is one thing and one thing only, that democracy become again democracy in action, not democracy accomplished and piled up in goods and gold.

- Archibald MacLeish

topic: Democracy, Gold, Done

Where some people are very wealthy and others have nothing, the result will be either extreme democracy or absolute oligarchy, or despotism will come from either of those excesses.

- Aristotle

topic: People, Democracy, Excess, Oligarchy

In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme.

- Aristotle

topic: Power, Democracy, Majority

Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.

- Aristotle

topic: Philosophical, Historical, Democracy

Democracy is the form of government in which the free are rulers.

- Aristotle

topic: Government, Democracy, Form

The many are more incorruptible than the few; they are like the greater quantity of water which is less easily corrupted than a little.

- Aristotle

topic: Water, Democracy, Littles

The essence of a democracy is a free electorate.

- Arlen Specter

topic: Essence, Democracy, Transcendentalism, Electorate

Voting is fundamental in our democracy. It has yielded enormous returns.

- Arlen Specter

topic: Voting, Democracy, Fundamentals

The passengers and crew of United Airlines Flight 93, recognizing the potential danger that the aircraft they were aboard posed to large numbers of innocent Americans, American institutions, and the symbols of American democracy, took heroic and noble action to ensure that the aircraft they were aboard could not be used as a weapon.

- Arlen Specter

topic: Numbers, Democracy, Weapons, Large Numbers, American Democracy

A global democracy works only when countries trust one another.

- Armstrong Williams

topic: Country, Democracy

The larger goal of Deep Democracy is not me changing you and you changing me. But we learning how to relate.

- Arnold Mindell

topic: Goal, Democracy, Relate

There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.

- Arthur Jensen

topic: America, Democracy, World, Bylaws

Politics in a democracy is, at the end, an educational process.

- Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

source: "A Clinton Report Card, So Far" by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., www.nytimes.com. April 11, 1993.

topic: Educational, Democracy, Politician

There is no more dangerous thing for a democracy than a foreign policy based on presidential preventive war.

- Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

topic: War, Presidential, Democracy, Preventive War

Political disagreements have the colour and fragrance that normally is seen and felt in a political bouquet, while remaining united on one issue that democracy is the future of Pakistan.

- Asif Ali Zardari

topic: Issues, Political, Democracy

Democracies do not go to war. War is not our expression of thought.

- Asif Ali Zardari

source: "Larry King Live", www.cnn.com. December 2, 2008.

topic: War, Expression, Democracy

My life had been defined by the apartheid years. Now we were going into an era of democracy... and I believed that I didn't really have a function as a useful artist in that anymore.

- Athol Fugard

source: "Playwright Fugard Bucked South Africa's 'Racist Ideas'". "Tell Me More" with Michel Martin, www.npr.org. August 1, 2012.

topic: Artist, Years, Democracy

We must remember that democracy works when given time to develop, mature and deliver. People must have access to information for informed debate. Government institutions must treat citizens fairly, and with dignity, while responding to their needs.

- Atifete Jahjaga

topic: Government, People, Democracy, Access To Information

Democracy is a revelation, but it's complicated. There are elections to hold, politics to create, rights to assert, grievances to settle and institutions to build. To many, it's exhilarating. For others, it can be disappointing when it turns out that democracy doesn't immediately make life better.

- Atifete Jahjaga

topic: Rights, Democracy, Election

Sometimes democracy must be bathed in blood.

- Augusto Pinochet

topic: Blood, Democracy, Sometimes

Democracy is the breeding ground of communism,

- Augusto Pinochet

topic: Democracy, Communism, Breeding

Freedom and democracy are dreams you never give up.

- Aung San Suu Kyi

topic: Dream, Giving Up, Democracy, Absolute Freedom

Investment that only goes to enrich an already wealthy elite bent on monopolizing both economic and political power cannot contribute toward egalite and justice -- the foundation stones for a sound democracy.

- Aung San Suu Kyi

topic: Justice, Political, Democracy, Monopolizing

The vision I would like to see here is the entrenching of the Jewish and the Zionist state...I very much favour democracy, but when there is a contradiction between democratic and Jewish values, the Jewish and Zionist values are more important.

- Avigdor Lieberman

source: "The Rise of Avigdor Lieberman". Ben Lynfield, The Nation, December 14, 2006.

topic: Vision, Democracy, Important, Jewish Values

In a well-functioning democracy, the state constitution is considered more important than God's holy book, whichever holy book that may be, and God matters only in your private life.

- Ayaan Hirsi Ali

topic: Book, Democracy, Important, Holy Books

Islam is not a race...Islam is simply a set of beliefs, and it is not 'Islamophobic' to say Islam is incompatible with liberal democracy.

- Ayaan Hirsi Ali

source: CBC News Interview, July 11, 2007.

topic: Race, Islam, Democracy, Liberal Democracy

I lived in countries that had no democracy... so I don't find myself in the same luxury as you do. You grew up in freedom, and you can spit on freedom because you don't know what it is not to have freedom.

- Ayaan Hirsi Ali

topic: Country, Luxury, Democracy

I think the advantage of democracy is that it makes us less dependent on a group of leaders.

- Azim Premji

topic: Thinking, Leader, Democracy

Democracy is not a form of government, but a form of social organisation.

- B. R. Ambedkar

source: John Allen Fraser (1993). “The House of Commons at Work”, Montréal : Éditions de la Chenelière

topic: Government, Democracy, Social

Democracy is not merely a form of Government. It is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience. It is essentially an attitude of respect and reverence towards our fellow men.

- B. R. Ambedkar

topic: Attitude, Men, Democracy

Democracies should be a delirium of choices - more options, not fewer; more avenues to travel, not fewer.

- B. W. Powe

source: "Towards a Canada of Light". Book by B. W. Powe, 2006.

topic: Choices, Democracy, Delirium

The corporatist-economic model of society appears to be governing us. Economists, often in the pay of transnationals, are deciding, for us, what democracy is, and will be.

- B. W. Powe

source: "Towards a Canada of Light". Book by B. W. Powe, 2006.

topic: Democracy, Pay, Economic, Economic Models

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

- Barack Obama

topic: Money, Democracy, Size

The strongest democracies flourish from frequent and lively debate, but they endure when people of every background and belief find a way to set aside smaller differences in service of a greater purpose.

- Barack Obama

topic: Differences, People, Democracy, Lively, Greater Purpose

We have proved that the true strength of our nation comes not from the scale of our wealth but from the power of our ideals - opportunity, democracy, liberty and hope.

- Barack Obama

topic: Strong, Opportunity, Democracy, True Strength

An enlightened citizen is an indispensable ingredient of the infrastructure of democracy.

- Barbara

topic: Democracy, Citizens, Ingredients

We need to give the Iraqis a chance to build their own future. It should be in their hands. It must be in their hands. That is what democracy is all about. We can teach it, we can explain it, but they must want it enough to make it work for them.

- Barbara Boxer

topic: Hands, Giving, Democracy

Today, I am an inquisitor. I shall not sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution.

- Barbara Jordan

source: Barbara Jordan, Shelby Hearon (1979). “Barbara Jordan, a self-portrait”, Doubleday Books

topic: Democracy, Today, Constitution

Congress is functioning the way the Founding Fathers intended-not very well. They understood that if you move too quickly, our democracy will be less responsible to the majority.

- Barber Conable

topic: Father, Moving, Democracy, Founding

When the body of the people is possessed of the supreme power, it is called a democracy.

- Baron de Montesquieu

topic: People, Democracy, Body, Supreme Power

Democracy has two excesses to avoid: the spirit of inequality, which leads to an aristocracy, or to the government of a single individual; and the spirit of extreme equality, which conducts it to despotism, as the despotism of a single individual finishes by conquest.

- Baron de Montesquieu

topic: Government, Two, Democracy

The love of democracy is that of equality.

- Baron de Montesquieu

topic: Equality, Democracy

The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.

- Baron de Montesquieu

topic: Wisdom, Democracy, Apathy, Indifference And Apathy, Public Welfare

Since Israel is a democratic state surrounded by essentially undemocratic states which have sworn her destruction, those interested in democracy everywhere must support Israel's existence.

- Bayard Rustin

topic: Israel, Support, Democracy

If we desire a society without discrimination, then we must not discriminate against anyone in the process of building this society. If we desire a society that is democratic, then democracy must become a means as well as an end.

- Bayard Rustin

topic: Mean, Democracy, Desire, Democratic Rights, Desire To Achieve

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

- Ben Ehrenreich

topic: Names, Democracy, Done, Being Done

The second 'Postal Service' album is threatening to become the 'Chinese Democracy' of indie rock. It will come out eventually, or maybe it won't.

- Ben Gibbard

topic: Rocks, Chinese, Democracy, Postal Service, Indie Rock

Democracy is the best revenge.

- Benazir Bhutto

topic: Revenge, Freedom, Democracy, Bhutto, Remarks

Democracy is necessary to peace and to undermining the forces of terrorism.

- Benazir Bhutto

topic: Democracy, Terrorism, Force, Counter Terrorism, Undermining

America's greatest contribution to the world is its concept of democracy, its concept of freedom, freedom of action, freedom of speech, and freedom of thought.

- Benazir Bhutto

topic: America, Freedom Of Speech, Democracy

Freedom is not an end. Freedom is a beginning.

- Benazir Bhutto

source: Benazir Bhutto (1989). “Speeches and Statements: Apr. 2-Nov. 14, 1989”

topic: Democracy, Ends

Democracy needs support, and the best support for democracy comes from other democracies.

- Benazir Bhutto

topic: Support, Democracy, Needs, Voting And Democracy

The forces of moderation and democracy must, and will, prevail against extremism and dictatorship. I will not be intimidated...Despite threats of death, I will not acquiesce to tyranny, but rather lead the fight against it.

- Benazir Bhutto

topic: Courage, Fighting, Democracy

Democracy is beautiful in theory; in practice it is a fallacy.

- Benito Mussolini

source: to Edwin L James of the New York Times, 1928.

topic: Beautiful, Practice, Democracy, Corporatism, Theory And Practice

Having created the conditions that make markets possible, democracy must do all the things that markets undo or cannot do.

- Benjamin Barber

source: Benjamin Barber (2001). “Jihad vs. McWorld: Terrorism's Challenge to Democracy”, Ballantine Books

topic: Democracy, Libertarian

The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians.

- Benjamin Disraeli

topic: Political, Historical, Democracy, Statesmen

What good shall I do this day?

- Benjamin Franklin

topic: Democracy, This Day

You can make peace with an enemy, if the enemy abandons the idea of destroying you. That is the critical test. Democracies fail to understand that.

- Benjamin Netanyahu

source: Source: piersmorgan.blogs.cnn.com

topic: Ideas, Enemy, Democracy, Destroying You

A legitimate democracy cannot act against a terror organization because it is using civilians as a human shield, and therefore it should absorb attacks on its own civilians.

- Benjamin Netanyahu

topic: Organization, Democracy, Shields

A simple democracy is the devil's own government.

- Benjamin Rush

topic: Simple, Government, Democracy

There is but one method of rendering a republican form of government durable, and that is by disseminating the seeds of virtue and knowledge through every part of the state by means of proper places and modes of education and this can be done effectively only by the aid of the legislature.

- Benjamin Rush

topic: Mean, Government, Democracy

He who attempts to control another is a governor, an aggressor, an invader; and the nature of such invasion is not changed, whether it is made by one man upon another man ... or by all other men upon one man, after the manner of a modern democracy.

- Benjamin Tucker

topic: Men, Democracy, Invasion

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

- Benjamin Whichcote

topic: Passion, Men, Democracy

Everyone knew that democracy-direct rule by all the people-required such spartan, sel denying virtue on the part of all the people that it was likely to survive only where poverty made upright behavior necessary for the perpetuation of the race.

- Bernard Bailyn

topic: Race, People, Democracy

A monoculture is not only Hollywood, but Americans trying to export democracy.

- Bernardo Bertolucci

source: "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

topic: Democracy, Trying, Hollywood, Monoculture

If we dwell in a community that is comfortable, then it's probably not broad enough a coalition.

- Bernice Johnson Reagon

topic: Community, Democracy, Enough

Democracy, then, in the centralizing, pattern-making, absolutist shape which we have given to it is, it is clear, the time of tyranny's incubation.

- Bertrand de Jouvenel

source: Bertrand de Jouvenel (1949). “On Power: Its Nature and the History of Its Growth”

topic: Democracy, Shapes, Patterns, Incubation

To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the utmost importance to the citizens of a democracy.

- Bertrand Russell

topic: Democracy, Citizens, Importance, Immunity

Democracy has at least one merit, namely that a Member of Parliament cannot be stupider than his constituents, for the more stupid he is, the more stupid they were to elect him.

- Bertrand Russell

topic: Stupid, Democracy, Merit, Members Of Parliament

A fanatical belief in democracy makes democratic institutions impossible.

- Bertrand Russell

topic: Democracy, Impossible, Belief

If one man offers you democracy and another offers you a bag of grain, at what stage of starvation do you prefer the grain to the vote?

- Bertrand Russell

topic: Men, Democracy, Bags

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

- Bilawal Bhutto Zardari

topic: Mother, Revenge, Democracy

My mother always said democracy is the best revenge.

- Bilawal Bhutto Zardari

source: "Bhutto's Son to Lead Her Party". "The Bryant Park Project" with Alison Stewart, www.npr.org. December 31, 2007.

topic: Mother, Revenge, Democracy

Democracy works when people claim it as their own

- Bill Moyers

topic: People, Democracy, Claims

Although our interests as citizens vary, each one is an artery to the heart that pumps life through the body politic, and each is important to the health of democracy.

- Bill Moyers

topic: Heart, Voting, Democracy

I believe democracy requires a 'sacred contract' between journalists and those who put their trust in us to tell them what we can about how the world really works.

- Bill Moyers

topic: Trust, Believe, Democracy

Democracy only works when we claim it as our own

- Bill Moyers

topic: Democracy, Claims

Democracy belongs to those who exercise it.

- Bill Moyers

topic: Exercise, Democracy

The quality of democracy and the quality of journalism are deeply entwined.

- Bill Moyers

source: "Bill Moyer’s Speech – Nat’l Conf. for Media Reform". dailygrail.com. May 19, 2005.

topic: Media, Democracy, Quality

You can't have a people's democracy as long as corporations are considered people.

- Bill Moyers

topic: Long, People, Democracy

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

- Bill Moyers

topic: Political, Soul, Democracy

When a library is open, no matter its size or shape, democracy is open, too.

- Bill Moyers

topic: Democracy, Library, Shapes

Democracy in Yemen did not stop, instead it is in a continuous development, there is no other way to follow rather than democracy, it is our national way for building up our country, it was not imposed on us by others.

- Bill Vaughan

topic: Country, Democracy, Yemen

The US has not imposed democracy in Yemen, its people have.

- Bill Vaughan

topic: People, Democracy, Yemen

If you live in a democracy and don't have freedom of information, it's not a democracy. And people have to understand that if you don't have freedom of information online, it's not going to be offline, either.

- Birgitta Jonsdottir

topic: People, Democracy, Information, Offline

We are usually convinced more easily by reasons we have found ourselves than by those which have occurred to others.

- Blaise Pascal

topic: Freedom, Democracy, Reason

The essence of what exists in the U.S. is not democracy but capitalism - imperialism. What the U.S. spreads around the world is not democracy, but imperialism and political structures to enforce that imperialism.

- Bob Avakian

topic: Essence, Political, Democracy

I'm worried about the traditional media, but I think the new media is a plus for democracy.

- Bob Brown

topic: Thinking, Media, Democracy, New Media

I am aware that one should always make room for renewal in politics. A democracy is the healthier for the turnover of the depth of talent there is in its community.

- Bob Brown

topic: Community, Democracy, Rooms, Turnover

For comprehensive Earth action, an all-of-the-Earth representative democracy is required. That is, a global parliament.

- Bob Brown

source: "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

topic: Democracy, Earth, Action

Democracy don't rule the world, You'd better get that in your head; This world is ruled by violence, But I guess that's better left unsaid.

- Bob Dylan

topic: War, Democracy, World, Ruling The World

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.

- Bob Menendez

topic: Rights, Support, Democracy, Promoting

The best way to protect your own freedom is to watch everybody else's back. That's the essence of community.

- Bode Miller

source: Bode Miller (2005). “Bode: Go Fast, Be Good, Have Fun”, p.284, Villard

topic: Essence, Community, Democracy

Democracy is an objective. Democratization is a process. Democratization serves the cause of peace because it offers the possibility of justice and of progressive change without force.

- Boutros Boutros-Ghali

topic: Justice, Democracy, Causes, Democratization, Progressive Change