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Democracy Quotes

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Democracy Quotes

“In real danger sometimes even a democracy can really keep a secret.”

Real Sometimes Secret Democracy Danger

Author:Stuart Symington

“The passengers and crew of United Airlines Flight 93, recognizing the potential danger that the aircraft they were aboard posed to large numbers of innocent Americans, American institutions, and the symbols of American democracy, took heroic and noble action to ensure that the aircraft they were aboard could not be used as a weapon.”

Action Used United Numbers Democracy Danger Weapons Institutions Noble Innocent Flight Symbols Heroic Crew Recognizing Airline Passengers Large Numbers Aircraft American Democracy

Author:Arlen Specter

“The danger is not only that these austerity measures are killing the European economies but also that they threaten the very legitimacy of European democracies - not just directly by threatening the livelihoods of so many people and pushing the economy into a downward spiral, but also indirectly by undermining the legitimacy of the political system through this backdoor rewriting of the social contract.”

“A democracy flirts with the danger of becoming a slave in direct ratio to the numbers of its citizens who work, but do not own / or who own, but do not work; or who distribute, as politicians do, but do not produce. The danger of the "slave state" disappears in ratio to the numbers of people who own property and admit its attendant responsibilities under God. They can call their souls their own because they own and administer something other than their souls. Thus they are free.”

People Soul States Wisdom Politics Numbers Responsibility Economy Democracy Danger Produce Becoming Citizens Politician Direct Property Slave Disappear Liberalism Flirting Ratios

Author:Fulton J. Sheen

“What frightens me about America today is that in the large majority there is no active sense of the value of the individual: few citizens feel that they are the Republic, responsible for what happens. And when the individual in a democracy ceases to feel his importance, then there is grave danger that he will give over his freedom, if not to a Fascist State, then to the advertising men or Publicity Agents or to the newspaper he happens to read.”

“A monarchy is like a man-of-war--bad shots between wind and water hurt it exceedingly; there is danger of capsizing. But democracy is a raft. You cannot easily overturn it. It is a wet place, but it is a pretty safe one.”

Men War Government Water Hurt Democracy Danger Wind Safe Shots Wet Monarchy

Book:Labor, with Preludes on Current Events

Source: Labor, with Preludes on Current Events

“The war industries in many countries and the enormous trade in weapons of all kinds generate corruption and fuel conflict throughout the world. The existence of an immensely powerful military-industrial complex constitutes a danger to democracy, both internationally and domestically, because it follows its own logic and operates independently of popular participation.”

“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

“Those of us who decided to work for democracy in Burma made our choice in the conviction that the danger of standing up for basic human rights in a repressive society was preferable to the safety of a quiescent life in servitude”

Humans Made Choices Democracy Rights Danger Standing Decided Safety Human Rights Conviction Servitude Our Choices Burma Basic Human Rights

Author:Aung San

“The biggest danger I feel are an emerging group of Westernised, educated, champagne socialists and latte liberals who pontificate about social inequality, democracy and freedom in the comfort of their condos.”

Feels Social Democracy Groups Danger Comfort Educated Inequality Emerging Champagne Lattes Social Inequality

Author:Calvin Cheng

“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.

“The moment politics becomes dull, democracy is in danger.”

Moments Politics Democracy Danger Dull

Author:Lord Hailsham

“We're an ignorant nation right now. We're not really capable, I do not think, the majority of our people, of making the decisions that have to be made at election time and particularly in the selection of their legislatures and their Congress and the presidency, of course. I don't think we're bright enough to do the job that would preserve our democracy, our republic. I think we're in serious danger.”

“If a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger?”

Ifs Men Littles Science Sports Leadership Freedom Knowledge Democracy Dangerous Danger Knowledge And Learning Knowledge Learning Knowledge And Understanding Little Knowledge Learning Knowledge Dangerous Man Knowledge Is Dangerous

Author:Thomas Huxley

“Highly graduate taxation realizes most completely the supreme danger of democracy, creating a state of things in which one class imposes on another burdens which it is not asked to share, and impels the State into vast schemes of extravagance, under the belief that the whole costs will be thrown upon others.”

States Whole Belief Realizing Class Democracy Share Danger Cost Creating Burden Supreme Thrown Graduates Schemes Taxation Extravagance

Author:William Edward Hartpole Lecky

“After the First World War, Germany was trying to build a democracy. Then when the Reichstag, the legislature, was burned down in 1933, this was seen as such an emergency that human rights had to be suspended. The attack on the World Trade Towers has allowed Bush and his gang to do anything. What are we to do now? I say when there's a code red, we should all run around like chickens with our heads cut off. I don't feel that we are in any great danger.”

“There's a real danger when people get distracted by peripheral issues. They get distracted by democracy building. They get distracted about military conflicts. We need to focus on defeating jihadism.”

People Needs Real Democracy Issues Focus Military Danger Building Conflict Distracted

Author:Ted Cruz

“Democracy is a danger to any powerful group.”

Powerful Democracy Groups Danger

Author:Noam Chomsky

“The majority of Arab people see the United States and Israel (definitely not Iran or Syria) as the greatest danger to the world. Could you imagine what the Arab people would do if true democracy (rule of the people) were to be victorious?”

People Ifs World States United United States Democracy Imagine Danger Majority Israel Iran Syria True Democracy

Author:Andre Vltchek

“[James] Madison pointed out in the discussion of the constitutional debates - the constitutional convention - that democracy would be a danger. He used England of course as the model and said suppose that in England everyone had the free right to vote; the poor, the propertyless - who are the great majority - would use their voting power to take away the rights of property owners to carry out what we would call land reform.”