Best democracy & authority Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“No one can learn tolerance in a climate of irresponsibility, which does not produce democracy. The act of tolerating requires a climate in which limits may be established, in which there are principles to be respected. That is why tolerance is not coexistence with the intolerable. Under an authoritarian regime, in which authority is abused, or a permissive one, in which freedom is not limited, one can hardly learn tolerance. Tolerance requires respect, discipline, and ethics.”

May Doe Principles Democracy Society Produce Discipline Limits Authority Ethics Climate Tolerance Regimes Coexistence Irresponsibility

Author:Paulo Freire

“Americans cannot escape a certain responsibility for what is done in our name around the world. In a democracy, even one as corrupted as ours, ultimate authority rests with the people. We empower the government with our votes, finance it with our taxes, bolster it with our silent acquiescence. If we are passive in the face of America's official actions overseas, we in effect endorse them.”

Source: The Eagle's Shadow: Why America Fascinates and Infuriates the World

“My critique of democracy begins and ends with this point. Kids must be educated to disrespect authority or else democracy is a farce.”

Ends Kids Democracy Authority Educated Critique Disrespect Farce

Author:Abbie Hoffman

“The modern world is reversing the old virtues of authority. They aimed deliberately to make men unworldly. They did not aim to found society on a full use of the earth's resources; they did not aim to use the whole nature of man; they did not intend him to think out the full expression of his desires. Democracy is a turning point upon those ideals in a pursuit, at first unconsciously, of the richest life that men can devise for themselves.”

Thinking Men World Firsts Whole Use Earth Desire Found Virtue Democracy Modern Expression Authority Resources Ideals Aim Pursuit Modern World Turning Points Nature Of Man

Author:Walter Lippmann

“A republic is not an easy form of government to live under, and when the responsibility of citizenship is evaded, democracy decays and authoritarianism takes over.”

Government Form Easy Responsibility Democracy Authority Republic Decay Citizenship Forms Of Government Authoritarianism

Book:A Republic, If You Can Keep It. -

Source: A Republic, If You Can Keep It. -

“The self-discipline of the Social Democracy is not merely the replacement of the authority of bourgeois rulers with the authority of a socialist central committee. The working class will acquire the sense of the new discipline, the freely assumed self-discipline of the Social Democracy, not as a result of the discipline imposed on it by the capitalist state, but by extirpating, to the last root, its old habits of obedience and servility.”

“It depends on the consent of the people to decide whether kings or consuls or other magistrates are to be established in authority over them, and if there is legitimate cause, the people can change a kingdom into an aristocracy, or an aristocracy into a democracy, and vice versa, as we read was done in Rome.”

People Ifs Done Wisdom Politics Causes Economy Democracy Depends Kings Authority Vices Kingdoms Liberalism Rome Consent Vice Versa Aristocracy Magistrates People Can Change

Author:Robert Bellarmine

“The importance of the ordinary citizen is very greatly underestimated - not so much by those in authority as by the ordinary citizen himself.”

Democracy Citizens Authority Ordinary Importance Underestimated Ordinary Citizens

Book:A pocketful of pebbles

Source: A pocketful of pebbles

“Democracy means doing whatever you want without asking permission of anybody but your boss, your doctor, your lawyer, your landlord, your bank, your city, your state and federal authorities, and your wife and children.”

Want Mean Children States Government Cities Democracy Wife Authority Doctors Asking Lawyer Boss Permission Landlord Asking Permission

Author:Sam Levenson

“We are not directly involved in Syria. But we will be working with our partners in the European Union and at the United Nations to see if we can persuade the Syrian authorities to go, as I say, more in that direction of respect for democracy and human rights.”

Ifs Humans Nations United Democracy Rights Involved Authority Unions Human Rights Partners Syria United Nations European Union Democracy And Human Rights

Author:William Hague

“Let the people decide whom to vote for, who has more authority. And only people, only our citizens, are able to place the final emphasis, voting for this or that person or political force, or rejecting it. Thats democracy.”

People Persons Able Political Force Democracy Citizens Authority Vote Finals Voting Emphasis Rejecting

Author:Dmitry Medvedev

“The devotion of democracy to education is a familiar fact. The superficial explanation is that a government resting upon popular suffrage cannot be successful unless those who elect and who obey their governors are educated. Since a democratic society repudiates the principle of external authority, it must find a substitute in voluntary disposition and interest; these can be created only by education.”

Source: Democracy and Education: Top American Authors

“All modes of government are failures. Despotism is unjust to everybody, including the despot, who was probably made for better things. Oligarchies are unjust to the many, and ochlocracies are unjust to the few. High hopes were once formed of democracy; but democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people. It has been found out. I must say that it was high time, for all authority is quite degrading. It degrades those who exercise it, and degrades those over whom it is exercised.”

People Mean Has Beens Made Government Found Democracy Exercise Authority Including Unjust Despotism Degrade Degrading Oligarchy Despots

Author:Oscar Wilde

“This democracy... The elections in Iraq were held despite the American opposition. It was the will of the Iraqi people and the religious authorities. [The elections] were the result of pressure by Ayatollah Sistani, by the Iraqi religious authorities, and by the fighting forces in Iraq on America. They left the US no choice but to allow the elections.”

People America Choices Fighting Left Force Religious Results Democracy Authority Pressure Election Iraq Despite Opposition

Author:Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani

“To totalitarianism, an opponent is by definition subversive; democracy treats subversives as mere opponents for fear of betraying its principles.”

Politics Principles Democracy Authority Treats Mere Definitions Opponents Betray Totalitarianism Subversive

Author:Jean Francois Revel

“Democracy and equality try to denythe mystic recognition of difference and innate priority, the joy of obedience and the sacred responsibility of authority.”

Trying Joy Leadership Differences Responsibility Democracy Authority Sacred Equality Priorities Recognition Obedience Innate Mystic

Author:D. H. Lawrence

“But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts--for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own Governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.”

World Heart Government Lasts Fighting Nations Voice Liberty Democracy Rights Authority Universal Safety Concerts Submit Dominion Declaration Of War Small Nations

Author:Woodrow Wilson

“Under theocracies and other authoritarian regimes, the rulers are the moral authorities. Under genuine democracy some basic values are entrenched in the legal system, which is expected to be under democratic vigilance, and others are left to the person or the group, which ideally debate moral problems in a rational, free and cooperative manner.”

Persons Problem Values Left Moral Democracy Groups Authority Democratic Expected Debate Genuine Rational Regimes Rulers Vigilance Cooperatives Legal System Theocracy Moral Authority

Author:Mario Bunge

“Fascism is a system of political authority and social order intended to reinforce the unity, energy, and purity of communities in which liberal democracy stands accused of producing division and decline.”

Political Order Politics Energy Social Community Democracy Authority Unity Purity Division Fascism Decline Accused Social Order Liberal Democracy

Author:Robert O. Paxton

“A more important antidote to American democracy is American gerontocracy. The positions of eminence and authority in Congress are allotted in accordance with length of service, regardless of quality.”

Important Quality Democracy Position Authority Congress Length Antidote Eminence American Democracy

Author:John Kenneth Galbraith

“I define democracy as control by the people. Slaves are those who allow others to control their lives. Insofar as people succeed in solving their problems fairly and efficiently at a grassroots level, they retain control over their lives. Insofar as they delegate their problem solving to a higher authority, they lose control over their lives.”

People Problem Loses Levels Democracy Higher Succeed Authority Slave Problem Solving Delegates Grassroots

Book:Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words

Source: Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words

“That kind of skeptical, questioning, "don't accept what authority tells you" attitude of science - is also nearly identical to the attitude of mind necessary for a functioning democracy. Science and democracy have very consonant values and approaches, and I don't think you can have one without the other.”

Thinking Mind Kind Values Attitude Accepting Democracy Authority Approach Questioning Skeptical Identical Democracies Have Consonants

Book:Conversations with Carl Sagan

Source: Conversations with Carl Sagan

“It's symbolic of how I feel, with cameras on every street corner. Being watched all the time, having my sense of freedom invaded. Privacy is an important thing, and it has been eroded over the past few years. Now they're talking about body scans at airports. Democracy becomes a sham the second you have to give way to authorities who can do any kind of search that they want with you.”

“If I rule out violent anarchism, there remains pacifist, anti-nationalist, anti-capitalist, moral, and anti-democratic anarchism (i.e., that which is hostile to the falsified democracy of bourgeois states). There remains the anarchism which acts by means of persuasion, by the creation of small groups and networks, denouncing falsehood and oppression, aiming at a true overturning of authorities of all kinds as people at the bottom speak and organize themselves.”

“As the histories of ancient and modern democracies illustrate, the pressure of political movement in times of war, civil commotion, or general anxiety pushes in the direction of authority, not away from it.”

War Political Democracy Modern Movement Authority Anxiety Pressure Ancient Political Movements

Author:Robert Heilbroner

“A democracy which fails to concentrate authority in an emergency inevitably falls into such confusion that the ground is prepared for the rise of a dictator.”

Fall Democracy Failing Authority Prepared Confusion Dictator Emergencies

Book:Authority in the crisis

Source: Authority in the crisis

“The fate of every democracy, of every government based on the sovereignty of the people, depends on the choices it makes between these opposite principles, absolute power on the one hand, and on the other the restraints of legality and the authority of tradition.”

People Hands Government Choices Principles Democracy Fate Depends Authority Tradition Opposites Absolutes Restraint Sovereignty Absolute Power Legality

Author:Lord Acton

“Vaclav Havel was the most amazing man in terms of being the combination of somebody with massive moral authority, great courage for having espoused the concepts of democracy, freedom throughout a very difficult communist period, a very modest man, and somebody with a fabulous sense of humor and the idea of being able to see the absurd in situations.”

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Democracy Quotes