Democracy quotes
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside democracy — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"Democracy is an interesting, even laudable, notion and there is no question but that when compared to Communism, which is too dull, or Fascism, which is too exciting, it emerges as the most palatable form of government."
"Knowledge of the natural world and how it works should be counted as fundamental to informed governance. You can't have a functioning democracy, if the electorate is under-informed or, worse, mis-informed."
"Democracy is a word all public men use and none understand."
"You don't spread democracy through the barrel of a gun."
"The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written."
"(Tradition) is the democracy of the dead."
"At the bottom of all the tributes paid to democracy is the little man, walking into the little booth, with a little pencil, making a little cross on a little bit of paper. . . ."
"What is a political party but a conspiracy?"
"I do not admire 'the people,' as such. No one really does. Their folk wisdom is usually false, their instincts predatory. Even their sense of survival - so highly developed in the individual - goes berserk in the mass. A crowd is a fool."
"The answer to subversion of democracy is more democracy, more freedom, more justice."
"Looking at polls of Arab public opinion, you look at popular figures, the most popular figure is the prime minister of Turkey, Erdogan, and then it goes down the list. You get Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, you don't get Obama, or in fact any western leader. The public doesn't want the whole imperial project. So if you had democracy, it would be all over."
"I am a democrat only on principle, not by instinct, nobody is that. Doubtless some people say they are, but this world is grievously given to lying."
"A democratic state is not proven by the welfare of the strong but by the welfare of the weak."
"If the government was as afraid of disturbing the consumer as it is of disturbing business, this would be some democracy."
"The whole world must see that Israel must exist and has the right to exist, and is one of the great outposts of democracy in the world."
"Democracy as a system has evolved into something that Thomas Jefferson didn't anticipate."
"Democracy is not a Beloved Republic really, and never will be. But it is less hateful than other contemporary forms of government, and to that extent deserves our support."
"The more I see of democracy the more I dislike it. It just brings everything down to the mere vulgar level of wages and prices, electric light and water closets, and nothing else."
"China has to go along with world trends. That's democracy, liberty, individual freedom. China sooner or later has to go that way. It cannot go backward."
"The peaceful transition of power is one of the hallmarks of our democracy."
