D Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with D. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“Democracies don't prepare well for things that have never happened before.”
“Democracies don't war; democracies are peaceful countries.”
“Democracies have been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death.”
Source: The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788
“Democracies have been, and governments called, free; but the spirit of independence and the consciousness of unalienable rights, were never before transfused into the minds of a whole people....The feeling of equality which they proudly cherish does not proceed from an ignorance of their station, but from the knowledge of their rights; and it is this knowledge which will render it so exceedingly difficult for any tyrant ever to triumph over the liberties of our country.”
Source: Ladies' Magazine
“Democracies have to be careful that they do not become so process-driven.”
“Democracies must have equilibrium... and the entanglement of politics and information must be minimized.”
“Democracies should be a delirium of choices - more options, not fewer; more avenues to travel, not fewer.”
“Democracies should work, again in coalitions, to promote transparency, to create international standards, to ensure that autocracies don't set the rules and shape the products.
We are becoming aware of all these things very late. Around the world, democratic activists, from Moscow to Hong Kong to Caracas, have been warning us that our industries, our economic policies, and our research efforts are enabling the economic and even the military aggression of others, and they are right.”
Source: Autocracy, Inc.
“Democracies succeed or fail based on their journalism.”
“Democracies succeed or fail based on their journalism. America is strong because its journalism is strong. That is how democracies work. They're only as good as the quality of the information that the public possesses and that is where we come in.”
“Democracies, unlike dictatorships, are forgiving and generous, but they cannot survive unless they fight.”
“Democracy -- rule by the people -- sounds like a fine thing; we should try it sometime in America.”
Source: A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
“democracy ... begins from the ground up. Anything living grows from the bottom up. Everything dangerous, like bombs, gets dropped from the sky down.”
“Democracy ... is never won but always to be won.”
“democracy ... is not something that occurs overnight. It is not a gift delivered on a golden tray. Democracy is a long process of fighting, challenging accepted ideas, and perpetually striving for freedom. Like a seed that has to be watered every day to become a flower, democracy needs constant attention and care.”
“Democracy acknowledges the right to differ as well as the duty to settle differences peacefully. Authoritarian governments see criticism of their actions and doctrines as a challenge to combat.”
Source: Freedom from Fear: And Other Writings
“Democracy actually requires that the whole public be able to see common problems and address them and step outside of their own sort of narrow self-interest to do so.”
“DEMOCRACY ALLOWS ONE TO RIG MINDS. THAT SPACE WAS UNENCROACHABLE IN MONARCHIES.
THE DANCE OF DEMOCRACY”
“Democracy alone, of all forms of government, enlists the full force of men's enlightened will.”
Source: The Essential Franklin Delano Roosevelt
“democracy always makes for materialism, because the only kind of equality that you can guarantee to a whole people is, broadly speaking, physical.”
“Democracy and dependence on the military and police are incompatible.”
“Democracy and equality try to denythe mystic recognition of difference and innate priority, the joy of obedience and the sacred responsibility of authority.”
“Democracy and liberty are not the same. Democracy is little more than mob rule, while liberty refers to the sovereignty of the individual.”
“Democracy and markets are both fundamental building blocks for a decent society. But they clash at a fundamental level. We need to balance them.”
Source: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism
“Democracy and religion stand or fall together. Where democracy has been destroyed, religion has been doomed. Where religion has been trampled down, democracy has ceased to exist.... Tyrants have come and have had their day and then have passed while religion has survived them all.”
“Democracy and socialism are means to an end, not the end itself.”
“Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.”
“Democracy and violence can ill go together.”
Source: Gandhi: Selected Political Writings
“Democracy appeared when God created Eve and told Adam to choose a wife.”
Source: Yet Another New Land
“Democracy appears to be safer and less liable to revolution than oligarchy. For in oligarchies there is the double danger of the oligarchs falling out among themselves and also with the people; but in democracies there is only the danger of a quarrel with the oligarchs. No dissension worth mentioning arises among the people themselves. And we may further remark that a government which is composed of the middle class more nearly approximates to democracy than to oligarchy, and is the safest of the imperfect forms of government.”
Source: On man in the universe: Metaphysics, Parts of animals, Ethics, Politics, Poetics
“Democracy appears to me potentially a higher form of political organization than any kind of dictatorship. But if it turns out that in America, which could afford a decent living for everyone, the comfortable majority is willing to condone the misery and abuse of a minority for an indefinite period, the exploitation by the majority becomes as repugnant as exploitation by an oligarchy, and democracy loses half its supposed superiority.”
“Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.”
Source: Politics
“Democracy arose from men's thinking that if they are equal in any respect they are equal absolutely.”
“Democracy as a system has evolved into something that Thomas Jefferson didn't anticipate.”
Source: Conversations with Hunter S. Thompson
“Democracy becomes a de facto oligarchy not because of the rich but because of the poor. They allow their votes to be bought and purchase entertainment products, which creates a new class of merciless rich from the ranks of the most vicious of the poor. These are not aristocrats; they are the opposite.”
Source: Power Nihilism: A Case for Moral & Political Nihilism
“Democracy becomes an illusion in a nation with a centralised banking system, as such a structure inevitably leads to unequal wealth distribution.”
“Democracy begins in human conversation. A democratic conversation does not require elaborate rules of procedure or utopian notions of perfect consensus. What it does require is a spirit of mutual respect-people conversing critically with one another in an atmosphere of honesty and shared regard.”
Source: Who will tell the people: the betrayal of American democracy
“Democracy belongs to those who exercise it.”
“Democracy breaks the unity of the Romanian people, dividing it into parties, stirring it up, and so, disunited, exposing it to face the united block of the Judaic power.”
Source: For My Legionaries
“Democracy can be sustained and developed only by people who understand its essence.”
“Democracy can exist only in the countries where people are brave! Coward nations always live under the authoritarian regimes!”
“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.”
Source: Complete Essays: 1956-1963, and supplement, 1920-1948
“Democracy can only be measured on the existence of an opposition”
“Democracy can only represent the average if not less than the average.”
Source: The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi
“Democracy can only spring from practising it early, and democratic action was not to expected from young people brought up under a close authoritarian system.”
Source: The Tamarisk Tree: My quest for liberty and love
“Democracy can only spring from within a nation itself, only from the hearts and minds of its people.”
“Democracy can survive anything except Democrats”
“Democracy can thrive only when it enlists the devotion of those whom Lincoln called the common people. Democracy can hold that devotion only when it adequately respects their dignity by so ordering society as to assure to the masses of men and women reasonable security and hope for themselves and for their children.”
“Democracy can't be just for billionaires and corporations.”
“Democracy can't function without an informed citizenry.”