"If we fail to meet our problems here, no one else in the world will do so. If we fail, the heart goes out of progressives throughout the world."
Democracy quotes
Democracy
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Democracy quotes (page 15 of 129)
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"For poets (bear the word) Half-poets even, are still whole democrats."
"The tank, the B-52, the fighter-bomber, the state-controlled police and military are the weapons of dictatorship. The rifle is the weapon of democracy. Not for nothing was the revolver called an "equalizer.""
"The values of science and the values of democracy are concordant, in many cases indistinguishable. Science and democracy began - in their civilized incarnations - in the same time and place, Greece in the seventh and sixth centuries B.C. . . . Science thrives on, indeed requires, the free exchange of ideas; its values are antithetical to secrecy. Science holds to no special vantage points or privileged positions. Both science and democracy encourage unconventional opinions and vigorous debate. Both demand adequate reason, coherent argument, rigorous standards of evidence and honesty."
"General rebellions and revolts of a whole people never were encouraged now or at any time. They are always provoked."
"I believe that without free enterprise there can be no democracy."
"Envy is the basis of democracy."
"We are usually convinced more easily by reasons we have found ourselves than by those which have occurred to others."
"All democracies are based on the proposition that power is very dangerous and that it is extremely important not to let any one person or small group have too much power for too long a time"
"The right constitutions, three in number- kingship, aristocracy, and polity- and the deviations from these, likewise three in number - tyranny from kingship, oligarchy from aristocracy, democracy from polity."
"Freedom and democracy are dreams you never give up."
"A perfect democracy is therefore the most shameless thing in the world."
"Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization."
"I believe in Democracy because it releases the energies of every human being."
"I like the idea of democracy. You have to have someone everyone distrusts."
"Where the law of the majority ceases to be acknowledged, there government ends; the law of the strongest takes its place, and life and property are his who can take them."
"One of my beliefs very strongly is that any democracy depends on a free, healthy press."
"Under democracy, individual liberty of opinion and action is jealously guarded."
"The spirit of democracy cannot be established in the midst of terrorism, whether governmental or popular."
"Democracy may have arisen in the West as the way of striving for the universal aspiration to dignity and freedom, but it isn't alien to the underlying concepts that infuse religion and moral philosophy everywhere."