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Democracy Quotes

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Democracy Quotes

“Violent resistance against the power of the state is the last resort of the minority in its effort to break loose from the oppression of the majority. ... The citizen must not be so narrowly circumscribed in his activities that, if he thinks differently from those in power, his only choice is either to perish or to destroy the machinery of state.”

Source: The free and prosperous commonwealth: an exposition of the ideas of classical liberalism

“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.”

“This country has attained 'Swarajya', but unfortunately the dream of 'Surajya' is left unfulfilled. Today, if there is any major challenge before this country, it is that of a 'Surajya' and since the last decade, Gujarat is working in the direction of attaining Surajya.”

Ifs Country Dream Today Lasts Left Challenges Democracy Majors India Election Decades Gujarat

Author:Narendra Modi

“What we have to do is to definitively remove the last vestiges of power from those who treat terms such as liberal democracy, free markets and Europe with suspicion.”

Lasts Term Democracy Europe Treats Remove Suspicion Free Market Liberal Democracy

Author:Donald Tusk

“Dandyism is the last flicker of heroism in decadent ages.... Dandyism is a setting sun; like the declining star, it is magnificent, without heat and full of melancholy. But alas! the rising tide of democracy, which spreads everywhere and reduces everything to the same level, is daily carrying away these last champions of human pride, and submerging, in the waters of oblivion, the last traces of these remarkable myrmidons.”

Humans Age Lasts Stars Water Levels Sun Democracy Pride Spread Setting Settings Heat Champion Rising Remarkable Melancholy Tides Heroism Magnificent Alas Oblivion Flicker Dandyism

Author:Charles Baudelaire

“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

“Journalism, like democracy, is not something that is achieved. It is a work in progress, and not every day is as good as the last.”

Lasts Democracy Progress Journalism Work In Progress

Author:John Maxwell Hamilton

“Civil rights, as we may remember, are reducible to three primary heads; the right of personal security; the right of personal liberty; and the right of private property. In a state of slavery, the two last are wholly abolished, the person of the slave being at the absolute disposal of his master; and property, what he is incapable, in that state, either of acquiring, or holding, in his own use. Hence, it will appear how perfectly irreconcilable a state of slavery is to the principles of a democracy, which form the basis and foundation of our government.”

Source: A Dissertation on Slavery: With a Proposal for the Gradual Abolition of it in the State of Virginia

“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty.”

“I do not say that democracy has been more pernicious on the whole, and in the long run, than monarchy or aristocracy. Democracy has never been and never can be so durable as aristocracy or monarchy; but while it lasts, it is more bloody than either.”

Long Has Beens Whole Running Lasts Democracy Long Runs Bloody Monarchy Aristocracy Democracies Have Pernicious

Book:The Political Writings of John Adams

Source: The Political Writings of John Adams

“Our political experiment of democracy, the last refuge of cheap misgovernment.”

Lasts Political Democracy Experiments Refuge

Book:George Bernard Shaw: The Collected Plays (Illustrated): 60 plays including Caesar and Cleopatra, Pygmalion, Saint Joan, The Apple Cart, Cymbeline, Androcles And The Lion, The Man Of Destiny, The Inca Of Perusalem and Macbeth Skit

Source: George Bernard Shaw: The Collected Plays (Illustrated): 60 plays including Caesar and Cleopatra, Pygmalion, Saint Joan, The Apple Cart, Cymbeline, Androcles And The Lion, The Man Of Destiny, The Inca Of Perusalem and Macbeth Skit

“There's no doubt that in the last two to three decades, American democracy has been hacked. It was based on the regular harvesting of the wisdom of crowds, but now big sources of special interest money are able to prevent the passage of almost any meaningful reform that's aimed at the public interest.”

“Our ultimate weapon is not our guns but our beliefs ... Ours are not Western values. They are the universal values of the human spirit and anywhere, any time, ordinary people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same. Freedom not tyranny. Democracy not dictatorship. The rule of law not the rule of the secret police. The spread of freedom is the best security for the free. It is our last line of defence and our first line of attack.”

“The war against ISIS will pose many new challenges for the next commander-in-chief. The last two presidents [George W. Bush and Barack Obama] pursued a Middle East policy that supported toppling dictators to try to promote democracy.”

“To make fun of an administration, to make fun of anything, Mark Twain said, is the last defense of democracy.”

Said Lasts Fun Democracy Mark Defense Administration

Author:Robin Williams

“Through much of the last century, America's faith in freedom and democracy was a rock in a raging sea. Now it is a seed upon the wind, taking root in many nations.”

Lasts America Nations Democracy Sea Rocks Century Wind Roots Seeds Rage

Author:George W. Bush

“Rulers like Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser started subsidizing bread as a way to buy loyalty, or at least obedience, and this system became so pervasive that the Tunisian scholar Larbi Sadiki described countries who used it as dimuqratiyyat al-khubz - "democracies of bread." But the problem with this system of offering bread in exchange for genuine democracy is that it can never last - sooner or later, the bread will run out, and people will start demanding bread and roses too.”

People Way Country Problem Running Lasts Used Democracy Rose Loyalty Genuine Bread Obedience Als Offering Scholar Rulers Sooner Or Later Egypt

Author:Annia Ciezadlo

“In the last presidential election Obama and Romney raised about $1 billion each. The Koch brothers, the second wealthiest family in America, now say they will raise nearly $1 billion for the 2016 elections. When one family can raise as much as an entire party, the system is broken. This is oligarchy, not democracy. We must overturn Citizens United.”

Lasts America United Party Democracy Brother Broken Citizens Raises Election Raised Billions Presidential Romney Oligarchy Presidential Election Citizens United

Author:Bernie Sanders

“That is, I think that what I do, that democracy in Venezuela hasn't really worked well since the [Ugo] Chávez era and that it has gotten even worse since the last elections, in which the Maduro government lost control of the House, of the country's legislature.”

Thinking Wells Country Government Lasts House Lost Democracy Election Eras Legislature Venezuela

Author:Marco Rubio

“The neoliberal programs of the last generation have in fact been, and were intended to be, a pretty serious attack on democracy, but also they've led to stagnation or decline for large parts of the population - the working class, the lower middle class, these people have essentially been cast aside.”

People Facts Lasts Class Democracy Generations Middle Serious Program Casts Population Middle Class Decline Working Class Stagnation

Author:Noam Chomsky

“I certainly don't mean to suggest that all investigative journalism prior to 9/11 in the US was praiseworthy. But there were more examples to which one could point, and there were at last some activist photographers who understood that getting information into the public sphere in spite of military censorship was a right and obligation within democracy. That strain in war journalism did nearly vanish during that time.”

Mean War Lasts Democracy Military Information Example Understood Photographer Obligation Journalism Spite Activist Spheres Censorship Strain Praiseworthy Investigative Journalism

Author:Judith Butler

“Elections themselves do not necessarily lead to more corporate uncertainty - quite the reverse, stable democracies create a reliable environment. And elections have caused hardly any change in the basic economic framework in the last few decades.”

Lasts Democracy Environment Economic Election Decades Corporate Uncertainty Stable Reverse Framework

Author:Nicholas Bloom