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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"I would like to invite the citizens of Great Britain and the citizens of the U.S. and the citizens of the world to come here and walk freely through the streets of Venezuela, to talk to anyone they want, to watch television, to read the papers. We are building a true democracy, with human rights for everyone, social rights, education, health care, pensions, social security, and jobs."
"Whenever we defend democracy we find oil."
"To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the utmost importance to the citizens of a democracy."
"Democracy is the form of government in which the free are rulers."
"Democracy means the opportunity to be everyone's slave."
"I am happy that Poland is returning to the road of pluralism and democracy."
"Popularity makes no law invulnerable to invalidation. Americans accept judicial supervision of their democracy - judicial review of popular but possibly unconstitutional statutes - because they know that if the Constitution is truly to constitute the nation, it must trump some majority preferences."
"Note, to-day, an instructive, curious spectacle and conflict. Science, (twin, in its fields, of Democracy in its)—Science, testing absolutely all thoughts, all works, has already burst well upon the world—a sun, mounting, most illuminating, most glorious—surely never again to set. But against it, deeply entrench'd, holding possession, yet remains, (not only through the churches and schools, but by imaginative literature, and unregenerate poetry,) the fossil theology of the mythic-materialistic, superstitious, untaught and credulous, fable-loving, primitive ages of humanity."
"I will not take 'but' for an answer. Negroes have been looking at democracy's 'but' too long."
"Preventive war is a crime not easily committed by a country that retains any traces of democracy."
"The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies."
"As for piracy, I love to be pirated. It is the greatest compliment an author can have. The wholesale piracy of Democracy was the single real triumph of my life. Anyone may steal what he likes from me."
"Democracy is not compatible with financial oligarchy, with discrimination against Blacks and outrages by the Ku Klux Klan."
"Of course, the aim of a constitutional democracy is to safeguard the rights of the minority and avoid the tyranny of the majority. (p. 102)"
"Democracy is something that you must learn each generation. It has to be taught."
"Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How's that again? I missed something."
"Without democracy freedom is a chimera"
"You cannot have a democracy without an informed people."
"Where freedom of religion has been attacked, the attack has come from sources opposed to democracy. Where democracy has been overthrown, the spirit of free worship has disappeared. And where religion and democracy have vanished, good faith and reason in international affairs have given way to strident ambition and brute force."
"I assume that the point of American democracy is you can express any point of view you want."
