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Democracy Quotes

Browse 5972 quotes about Democracy.

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Democracy Quotes

“Martin Luther King Jr's agenda was not to help Negroes overcome American apartheid in the south. It was to make America democracy a better place, where everyday people, from poor people who were white and red and yellow and black and brown, would be able to live lives in decency and dignity.”

PeopleHelpingWould BeAbleAmericaBlackWhitePoorDemocracyKingsRedDignityOvercomingSouthEverydayLive LifeBrownAgendasYellowBetter PlacePoor PeopleDecencyLutherApartheidRed And Yellow
Author:Cornel West
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“All talks about legacies of white supremacy must be tied to empowering the lives of poor and working people as a whole. The black agenda - from Frederick Douglas to A. Philip Randolph, Martin Luther King Jr, Fannie Lou Hammer to Ella Baker - has always been tied to race talk inseparable from expanding possibilities of democracy, expanding empowerment of everyday people.”

PeopleWholeBlackWhitePoorRaceDemocracyPossibilityKingsEmpowermentEverydayLegacyEmpoweringAgendasTiedWhite SupremacyExpandingHammersLutherInseparableSupremacyPhilipBakersFrederick Douglas
Author:Cornel West
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“The form of government is a democracy when the free, who are also poor and the majority, govern, and an oligarchy when the rich and the noble govern, they being at the same time few in number.”

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Book:Aristotle's Politics: Writings from the Complete Works: Politics, Economics, Constitution of Athens
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“Because the rich are generally few in number, while the poor are many, they appear to be antagonistic, and as the one or the other prevails they form the government. Hence arises the common opinion that there are two kinds of government - democracy and oligarchy.”

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Book:Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume 2: The Revised Oxford Translation
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“There is a vulgar persuasion, that the ignorance of women, by favoring their subordination, ensures their utility. 'Tis the same argument employed by the ruling few against the subject many in aristocracies; by the rich against the poor in democracies; by the learned professions against the people in all countries.”

PeopleCountryPoorDemocracyRichSubjectsIgnoranceArgumentProfessionPersuasionEmployedVulgarRulingUtilityAristocracyElitismSubordination
Book:Course of popular lectures as delivered by Frances Wright: with three addresses on various public occasions, and a reply to the charges against the French reformers of 1789. Second edition
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“I used to do volunteer work in poor areas of Cairo, and people would gather their money together to get a satellite dish. You'd see them huddling around and for the first time seeing issues being debated on TV that had never been talked about before. And that is the biggest promoter of democracy you could possibly have.”

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Author:Jehane Noujaim
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“We say that if America has entered the war to make the world safe for democracy, she must first make democracy safe in America. How else is the world to take America seriously, when democracy at home is daily being outraged, free speech suppressed, peaceable assemblies broken up by overbearing and brutal gangsters in uniform; when free press is curtailed and every independent opinion gagged? Verily, poor as we are in democracy, how can we give of it to the world?”

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Author:Emma Goldman
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“Political systems must love poverty-they produce so much of it. Poor people make easier targets for a demagogue. No Mao or even Jiang Zemin is likely to arise on the New York Stock Exchange floor. And politicians in democracies benefit from destitution, too. The US has had a broad range of poverty programs for 30 years. Those programs have failed. Millions of people are still poor. And those people vote for politicians who favor keeping the poverty programs in place. There's a conspiracy theory in there somewhere.”

PeopleYearsStillsPoliticalPoorPovertyMillionsDemocracyNew YorkProduceTheoryPoliticianEasierBenefitsProgramVoteFavorsAriseRangeTargetBroadsConspiracyPoor PeoplePolitical SystemsConspiracy TheoryMaoStock ExchangeNew York StockNew York Stock Exchange
Book:Eat the Rich: A Treatise on Economics
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“Imagine what would happen if the government were to take the wealth of 200,000 of India's richest people and redistribute it amongst 2 million of India's poorest? We would hear a lot about socialist appropriation and the death of democracy. Why should taking from the rich be called appropriation and taking from the poor be called development?”

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Author:Arundhati Roy
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“[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.”

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Author:Noam Chomsky
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