D Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with D. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“Democracy entails a correlation between the public interest as expressed by a majority of the population and the governmental policies that affect them. The term encompasses various manifestations, including direct, participatory and representative democracy, but Governments must be responsive to people and not to special interests such as the military-industrial complex, financial bankers and transnational corporations. Democracy is inclusive and does not privilege an anthropological aristocracy.”
“Democracy; Everyone's opinion is required! Autocracy; Someone's opinion is the best! Christocracy; What Christ said is FINAL!”
Source: The Great Hand Book of Quotes
“Democracy evolves where freedom is able to determine its own policy.”
“Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom; socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. 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 failed in Europe in the 1920s, '30s, and '40s, and it is failing not only in much of Europe but in many parts of the world today. It is that history and experience that reveals to us the dark range of our possible futures. A nationalist will say that "it can't happen here," which is the first step toward disaster. A patriot says that it could happen here, but that we will stop it.”
Source: On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
“Democracy fascinates me.”
“Democracy feeds on argument, on the discussion as to the right way forward. This is the reason why respecting the opinion of others belongs to democracy.”
“Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich -- that is the democracy of capitalist society.”
“Democracy forever teases us with the contrast between its ideals and its realities, between its heroic possibilities and its sorry achievements.”
Source: American Austen: The Forgotten Writing of Agnes Repplier
“Democracy functions best when we have an active citizenry.”
“Democracy generally monopolizes and concentrates power.”
“Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.”
“Democracy gives the aura of legitimacy to acts that would otherwise be considered tyranny.”
“Democracy gives us citizens a measure of political power. That power comes with a responsibility to foster a culture that makes it possible to live and work well together for the well-being of all.”
Source: Save Your City: How Toxic Culture Kills Community & What to Do About It
“Democracy has always been in crisis: democracy is all about practicing the art of bearable dissatisfaction. In democratic societies, people often complain about their leaders and their institutions. The gap between the ideal democracy and the existing one cannot be bridged.”
“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.”
Source: Autobiography
“Democracy has become, unless I mistake, a kind of test or shibboleth, by which we try men and measures; and this is the same as to say that it is merely a word which is powerful with us, and not the wide and true notion of what the word means. But we must define the true import of words, and not be slaves to syllables; for democracy in form is not necessarily people-power in fact, but power perhaps of a few, who cajole the many and so lead and use the people for their own ends.”
“Democracy has both expanded and declined over the years.”
“Democracy has many definitions, but what's in it for me is not an element of any of them.”
“Democracy has many enemies, and the terrorist is only one of them.”
“Democracy has no convictions for which people would be willing to stake their lives.”
“Democracy has not failed; the intelligence of the race has failed before the problems the race has raised”
“Democracy has now become corrupted by the nature of the funders.”
“Democracy has proved only that the best way to gain power over people is to assure the people that they are ruling themselves. Once they believe that, they make wonderfully submissive slaves.”
“Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.”
Source: The Middle Works, 1899-1924
“Democracy has turned out to be not majority rule but rule by well-organized and well-connected minority groups who steal from the majority.”
“Democracy has two excesses to avoid: the spirit of inequality, which leads to an aristocracy, or to the government of a single individual; and the spirit of extreme equality, which conducts it to despotism, as the despotism of a single individual finishes by conquest.”
“Democracy—here and in Britain and France, it hasn't been so universal a sniveling slavery as Naziism in Germany, such an imagination-hating, pharisaic materialism as Russia—even if it has produced industrialists like you, Frank, and bankers like you, R. C., and given you altogether too much power and money. On the whole, with scandalous exceptions, Democracy's given the ordinary worker more dignity than he ever had.”
Source: It Can't Happen Here
“Democracy holds little appeal for people who are struggling to survive.”
“Democracy if it meant what our forefathers said, that would be great but unfortunately it's been corrupted by this funding and funding of campaigns. There's a much better way to do it. There could be a small amount of money given by every taxpayer to be dedicated to candidates.”
“Democracy in China is like Viagra; no such thing as free elections.”
“Democracy in China is maybe like a democracy that is separated, distributed. But in the West, maybe it's something you go to the supermarket to buy.”
“Democracy in Iraq will be an example that the Arab population will look to with great interest. And some Arab governments are concerned about democracy in Iraq, not because Iraq will be an aggressive state against them, but rather by the example that will be set by a successful federal democratic state in Iraq.”
“Democracy in itself does not define or guarantee a free society. History has told many stories of democratic societies that have degenerated into corruption, plunder, and tyranny.”
“Democracy in many parts of the world is undergoing a very deep crisis. Politics is becoming a branch of the entertainment industry. People vote not for the best leader, but for the funniest candidate.”
“Democracy in our time is more likely to die of indifference than of intolerance.”
Source: The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy
“Democracy in the contemporary world demands, among other things, an educated and informed people.”
Source: LIFE WORLD LIBRARY BRAZIL
“Democracy” in the US is just a facade to hide dictatorship of the jews”
“Democracy in Yemen did not stop, instead it is in a continuous development, there is no other way to follow rather than democracy, it is our national way for building up our country, it was not imposed on us by others.”
“Democracy is "government of, by and for the people".”
Source: Selected Writings and Speeches of Abraham Lincoln
“Democracy is 51% of the people taking away the rights of the other 49%.”
“Democracy is a con game. It’s a word invented to placate people to make them accept a given institution. All institutions sing, ‘We are free.’ The minute you hear ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’, watch out… because in a truly free nation, no one has to tell you you’re free.”
“Democracy is a constant tension between truth and half-truth and, in the arsenal of truth, there is no greater weapon than fact.”
“Democracy is a danger to any powerful group.”
“Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.”
“Democracy is a difficult art of government, demanding of its citizens high ratios of courage and literacy, and at the moment we lack both the necessary habits of mind and a sphere of common reference.”
Source: Waiting for the Barbarians
“Democracy is a form of government only because it is a form of moral and spiritual association.”
Source: The Early Works, 1882-1898: 1882-1888. Early essays and Leibniz's new essays concerning the human understanding
“Democracy is a form of the state, it represents, on the one hand, the organized, systematic use of force against persons; but, on the other hand, it signifies the formal recognition of equality of citizens, the equal right of all to determine the structure of, and to administer, the state.”
“Democracy is a freak condition in the world's history: civil liberties are not common liberties even today, and most people in the world have never possessed them.”
Source: The Great Seesaw: A New View of the Western World, 1750-2000
“Democracy is a gleaming Excalibur - let's not use it just to mend the toaster.”