Democracy quotes
2.6K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside democracy — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"In the age of the internet, with all of its problems, over time, the very fact that individuals can join the conversation creates the opportunity for the emergence of - for the re-emergence of a genuine conversation of democracy."
"American democracy has been hacked."
"For me, the most serious problem is how America became so vulnerable to the assertion of blatant falsehoods that drive policy and are not corrected by the so-called immune system of democracy, a free press and a free democratic discourse."
"In order to solve the climate crisis, we need to solve the democracy crisis."
"Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us all unite!"
"The first thing I can remember I ever wanted was to go to the United States. And for reasons that are as conventional as you can imagine: I wanted to know if it was really true that it was the land of opportunity, of democracy, and individual liberty."
"There are two clocks ticking in Iran. One is the democracy movement clock which is ticking now faster than it was but it's got a lot of catching up to do. And then there's the clock that's ticking towards a nuclear weaponry."
"What’s happened is that, almost overnight, we’ve switched from democracy in real-property recording to oligarchy in real-property recording. There was no court case behind this, no statute from Congress or the state legislatures. It was accomplished in a private corporate decision. The banks just did it."
"In dreams we stand in this great democracy of the possible and there we are right pilgrims indeed. There we go forth to meet what we shall meet."
"A fanatical belief in democracy makes democratic institutions impossible."
"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."
"In a democracy it is necessary that people should learn to endure having their sentiments outraged."
"I'm worried about the traditional media, but I think the new media is a plus for democracy."
"For comprehensive Earth action, an all-of-the-Earth representative democracy is required. That is, a global parliament."
"Small unit democracy, I found early on, didn't work for me."
"In Cuba, we have a democracy that represents the humble, the dispossessed, those who make up the vast majority of the population. It is for those who carry the main weight of society's load in matters of the production of goods and services. These are not the ones that live from financial speculation."
"How is it possible that a process can be democratic when it comes by way of money? If there is money then it can be elected a senator, it can be elected a representative. Do you know how much it cost to be elected president of the United States? The amount has reached, billions of dollars, 2 billion, 3 billion, 4 billion dollars, that's how much a presidential campaign costs. How much does a senatorial campaign cost? It costs 80 to 90 million dollars; or the campaign of a representative, 40 to 50 million. Is that really a democracy?"
"We have a complete respect for history, we respect the experiences of other countries and we have our own, but the truth is that if the Cuban revolution had not been a democracy it would not have survived."
"Cuba is not like bourgeois democracy the ones that imposes the blockade to make Cuba change. We have direct elections. Here they put people on a list and then tell the people supposedly what they have done so they can be elected. That is the difference and why we say our democracy is truly participatory and popular."
"In Cuba, our experiment is not the best democracy and should not be a reference to anybody elses, it is ours. It has worked for us and the clearest evidence that our democracy has worked is that there is a revolution that has continued after a half century of facing down the most powerful empire. This has not happened many times in history."
