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Democracy Quotes

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Democracy Quotes

“The great ideas of the West - rationalism, self-criticism, the disinterested search for truth, the separation of church and state, the rule of law, equality before the law, freedom of conscience, thought, and expression, human rights, and liberal democracy- quite an achievement, surely, for any civilization- - remain the best, and perhaps the only, means for all people, no matter of what race or creed, to reach their full potential and live in freedom.”

PeopleHumansMeanIdeasSelfMatterStatesLawChurchRaceDemocracyRightsExpressionCivilizationAchievementConscienceCriticismWestHuman RightsSeparationCreedsChurch And StateGreat IdeaRule Of LawSeparation Of Church And StateRationalismFull PotentialSearch For TruthDisinterestedSelf CriticismLiberal Democracy
Book:Virgins? What Virgins?: And Other Essays
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“I think Churchill is right, the only thing to be said for democracy is that there is nothing else that's any better, and therefore he used to say, Tyranny tempered by assassination, but lots of assassination. People say, If the Congress were more representative of the people it would be better. I say the Congress is too damn representative. It's just as stupid as the people are; just as uneducated, just as dumb, just as selfish.”

PeopleIfsThinkingSaidWould BeUsedDemocracyStupidCongressSelfishTyrannyDumbDamnRepresentativesAssassinationUneducated
Author:Dean Acheson
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“I think it could be argued that I am not heard, in the broadest sense. That is not my concern. My concern, a question really, is, do I have the courage to speak? If I speak I believe someone will respond. It then becomes my responsibility to listen to that person. And in listening, together we create a space where people can be heard. It's the conversation that I care most deeply about; this is the space I want to honor, respect, and protect. This is my faith in the open space of democracy.”

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Author:Terry Tempest Williams
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“India's democracy where over 1 billion people have a voice in deciding their future is a world example of how governance can incorporate diversity into a movement for inclusive growth. New modes of democratic engagement, especially through using e-governance are allowing greater access to fundamental rights for all our people.”

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Author:Narendra Modi
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“Thus, experience has ever shown, that education, as well as religion, aristocracy, as well as democracy and monarchy, are, singly, totally inadequate to the business of restraining the passions of men, of preserving a steady government, and protecting the lives, liberties, and properties of the people . . . . Religion, superstition, oaths, education, laws, all give way before passions, interest, and power, which can be resisted only by passions, interest, and power.”

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Author:John Adams
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“Highly intelligent and well-informed people disagree on every political issue. Therefore, intelligence and knowledge are useless for making decisions, because if any of that stuff helped, then all the smart people would have the same opinions. So use your "gut instinct" to make voting choices. That is exactly like being clueless, but with the added advantage that you'll feel as if your random vote preserved democracy.”

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Author:Scott Adams
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“What created democracy was Thomas Paine and Shays Rebellion, the suffragists and the abolitionists and on down through the populists and the labor movement, including the Wobblies. Tough, in your face people... Mother Jones, Woody Guthrie... Martin Luther King and Caesar Chavez. And now it’s down to us.”

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Author:Jim Hightower
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“For me George Bush is just as scary, if not more. Because he doesn't look like a scary guy, because he's shaved and he has a tie on. But he's a real fanatic - a fanatic by definition is the one who says, if you are not with me, you are against me, and that's exactly the position he takes. The mullahs in my country, it's obvious. But a guy who says I am the president of the biggest secular democracy in the world and asks people to read the Bible and make crusades and says he's God's best friend - this guy is even more scary because you don't see it at the beginning.”

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Author:Marjane Satrapi
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“Journalism is one of the devices whereby industrial autocracy keeps its control over political democracy; it is the day-by-day, between-elections propaganda, whereby the minds of the people are kept in a state of acquiescence, so that when the crisis of an election comes, they go to the polls and cast their ballots for either one of the two candidates of their exploiters.”

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Book:The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism
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“The people as a body cannot deliberate. Nevertheless, they will feel an irresistible impulse to act, and their resolutions will be dictated to them by their demagogues... and the violent men, who are the most forward to gratify those passions, will be their favorites. What is called the government of the people is in fact too often the arbitrary power of such men. Here, then, we have the faithful portrait of democracy.”

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Book:Works of Fisher Ames: With a Selection from His Speeches and Correspondence
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“Ever since our country came into existence, we have always assumed that we are better than the Arabs. But we are noticing that these are no longer backward people. Suddenly we are confronted with a new situation - the fact that the Arab world maybe thinks just as democratically as we do, perhaps even more democratically. Where does this leave us? After all, we're supposed to be the only democracy in the Middle East!”

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Author:Tom Segev
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“Worldwide, the twentieth century has seen the rise of extraordinary concentrations of economic and political power - evoking the people as the source of power while simultaneously privatizing its most meaningful exercise. Democracy always seems to be at least slightly elusive under such conditions.”

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Author:Thomas L. Dumm
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“Those who applaud social production and networked amateurism, the colorful cacophony that is the Internet, and the creative capacities of everyday people to produce entertaining and enlightening things online, are right to marvel. There is amazing inventiveness, boundless talent and ability, and overwhelming generosity on display. Where they go wrong is thinking that the Internet is an egalitarian, let alone revolutionary, platform for our self-expression and development, that being able to shout into the digital torrent is adequate for democracy.”

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Book:The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age
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“I think democracy fails under a variety of conditions and one of the conditions occurs when people don't have the ability to get the kind of information they need to make up their mind. Ideologically, I don't care much for FOX News. But the truth is that, as long as there are countervailing points of view available on the spectrum, it doesn't matter.”

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Author:Howard Dean
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“If democracy is destroyed in Britain, it will be not the communists, Trotskyists or subversives but this House which threw it away. The rights that are entrusted to us are not for us to give away. Even if I agree with everything that is proposed, I cannot hand away powers lent to me for five years by the people of Chesterfield. I just could not do it. It would be theft of public rights.”

PeopleIfsGivingYearsHandsWould BeHouseDemocracyFiveRightsAgreeDestroyedFive YearsBritainCommunistTheft
Author:Tony Benn
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