D Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with D. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“Democracy can't work. Mathematicians, peasants, and animals, that's all there is - so democracy, a theory based on the assumption that mathematicians and peasants are equal, can never work. Wisdom is not additive; its maximum is that of the wisest man in a given group.”
Source: Glory Road
“Democracy cannot be built on revenge and you will not have the support of the world if you are intolerant and take the law into your own hands.”
“Democracy cannot be exported to some other place. This must be a product of internal domestic development in a society.”
“Democracy cannot be imposed on any nation from the outside. Each society must search for its own path, and no path is perfect.”
“Democracy cannot be static. Whatever is static is dead.”
Source: What I Hope to Leave Behind: The Essential Essays of Eleanor Roosevelt
“Democracy cannot breathe, indeed will die, if those enjoined to protect it and uphold the laws snuff it out - with no consequences.”
“Democracy cannot consist solely of elections that are nearly always fictitious and managed by rich landowners and professional politicians.”
“Democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largesse out of the public treasure. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefit from the public treasury, with the result that democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy, always to be followed by a dictatorship, and then a monarchy.”
“Democracy cannot function just on who do we fear the most, you know, or who do we hate the most; we need an affirmative agenda.”
“Democracy cannot meaningfully function without an informed citizenry, and such a citizenry is impossible without broad public access to information about the operations of government.”
“Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.”
Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: F.D. Roosevelt, 1938, Volume 7
“Democracy cannot survive overpopulation.”
Source: Conversations with Isaac Asimov
“Democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, but it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies.”
“Democracy cannot survive where there is such uniformity that everyone wears exactly the same intellectual uniform or point of view. Democracy implies diversity of outlook, a variety of points of view on politics, economics, and world affairs. Hence the educational ideal is not uniformity but unity, for unity allows diversity of points of view regarding the good means to a good end.”
“Democracy cannot sustain itself amid a high degree of violence.”
Source: A Woman Making History: Mary Ritter Beard Through Her Letters
“Democracy, civilization, society, all shall come, when we're aware of the duties of designation human.”
Source: Esperanza Impossible: 100 Sonnets of Ethics, Engineering & Existence
“Democracy comes naturally to him who is habituated normally to yield willing obedience to all laws, human or divine.”
Source: India of My Dreams
“Democracy commits us to value, preserve and uphold the rights, dignity, and well-being of all, including our neighbors, those who are different than us, those with whom we disagree, as well as future generations.”
Source: Save Your City: How Toxic Culture Kills Community & What to Do About It
“Democracy consists of choosing your dictators, after they've told you what you think it is you want to hear.”
“Democracy demands patient instruction on it before legislation.”
Source: The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi
“Democracy demands that elected members be able to realize fully the role for which they have been chosen.”
Source: Memoirs
“Democracy demands that little men should not take big ones too seriously; it dies when it is full of little men who think they are big themselves.”
Source: Present Concerns
“Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns in to universal, rather than religion-specific, values... it requires that their proposals be subject to argument and amenable to reason. Now I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, to take one example, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.”
“Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values.”
Source: Barack Obama: Speeches on the Road to the White House
“Democracy depends on citizens being informed, and since our media, especially television (which is the most important source of news for most Americans) reports mostly what the people in power do, and repeats what the people in power say, the public is badly informed, and it means we cannot really say we have a functioning democracy.”
“Democracy depends on information circulating freely in society.”
“Democracy depends on people speaking out, and in times of great crisis, on people creating a commotion.”
“Democracy derailed is democracy denied.”
“Democracy destroys the unity of the Rumanian nation, dividing it among political parties, making Rumanians hate one another, and thus exposing a divided people to the united congregation of Jewish power at a difficult time in the nation's history. This argument alone is so persuasive as to warrant the discarding of democracy in favor of anything that would ensure our unity - or life itself. For disunity means death.”
“Democracy disciplined and enlightened is the finest thing in the world. A democracy prejudiced, ignorant, superstitious, will land itself in chaos and may be self-destroyed.”
Source: Gandhi: Selected Political Writings
“Democracy divides people into workers and loafers. It makes no provision for those who have no time to work.”
Source: Half-truths & One-and-a-half Truths: Selected Aphorisms
“Democracy does not collapse in a single moment. It erodes through normalization, exhaustion, and silence.”
Source: Authoritarian Drift in the United States
“Democracy does not contain any force which will check the constant tendency to put more and more on the public payroll. The state is like a hive of bees in which the drones display, multiply and starve the workers so the idlers will consume the food and the workers will perish.”
“Democracy does not create strong ties between people. But it does make living together easier.”
“Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions - it only guarantees equality of opportunity.”
“Democracy does not have to be a bloodsport, it can be an honorable enterprise that advances the public interest.”
“Democracy does not race, it reaches the finish slowly but surely.”
“Democracy does not require perfect equality, but it does require that citizens share a common life. What matters is that people of different backgrounds and social positions encounter one another, and bump up against one another, in the course of ordinary life.”
“Democracy does not require perfect equality, but it does require that citizens share in a common life.”
Source: What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets
“Democracy doesn't mean your ability to insult others. Liberality doesn't mean your ability to walk naked.”
“Democracy doesn't begin at the top; it begins at the bottom, when flesh-and-blood human beings fight to rekindle what Arlo Guthrie calls 'The Patriot's Dream.”
“Democracy doesn't just consist of holding elections.”
“Democracy doesn't mean much if people have to confront concentrated systems of economic power as isolated individuals. Democracy means something if people can organize to gain information, to have thoughts for that matter, to make plans, to enter into the political system in some active way, to put forth programs and so on. If organizations of that kind exist, then democracy can exist too. Otherwise it's a matter of pushing a lever every couple of years; it's like having the choice between Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola.”
“Democracy doesn't recognize east or west and democracy is simply people's will. Therefore, I do not acknowledge that there are various models of democracy; there is just democracy itself.”
“Democracy doesn't recognize east or west; democracy is simply people's will. Therefore, I do not acknowledge that there are various models of democracy; there is just democracy itself.”
“Democracy doesn't require a whole lot of work of its citizens, but it requires some: It requires taking a good look outside once in a while, and considering the bad news and what it might mean, and making the occasional tough choice, and soberly taking stock of what your real interests are.”
“Democracy doesn't work unless people are well informed, and I don't know that we are. People just don't have the time. Most people's daily lives are just about surviving. Most people don't have time to really study [crucial] issues.”
“Democracy doesn't work unless the public is informed.”
“Democracy don't rule the world, You'd better get that in your head; This world is ruled by violence, But I guess that's better left unsaid.”
“Democracy encourages a taste for physical gratification; this taste, if it becomes excessive, soon disposes men to believe that all is matter only; and materialism, in its turn, hurries them on with mad impatience to these same delights; such is the fatal circle within which democratic nations are driven round. It were well that they should see the danger and hold back.”
Source: Democracy in America - Vol. I. and II.