“It is truly difficult to make a democracy. Democracy, like arty dream, is not made with spiritual words but with reflection and practice. It is not what I say that says I am a democrat, that I am not racist or machista but what I do. What I say must not be contradicted by what I do. It is what I do that bespeaks my faithfulness or not to what I say.” MadeDreamSpiritualDifficultPracticeDemocracySocietyReflectionDemocratRacistFaithfulness Author:Paulo Freire
“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.” MayDoePrinciplesDemocracySocietyProduceDisciplineLimitsAuthorityEthicsClimateToleranceRegimesCoexistenceIrresponsibility Author:Paulo Freire
“Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.” PoliticsDemocracySocietyPhilosophicalHistoricalRepublicDeclineDespotismDegenerates Author:Aristotle
“We must think of human progress, not as of something going on in the race in general, but as something going on in a small minority, perpetually beleaguered in a few walled towns. Now and then the horde of barbarians outside breaks through, and we have an armed effort to halt the process. That is, we have a Reformation, a French Revolution, a war for democracy, a Great Awakening. The minority is decimated and driven to cover. But a few survive- and a few are enough to carry on.” ThinkingHumansWarEnoughProcessEffortRaceBreakDemocracyProgressSocietyRevolutionTownsDrivenAwakeningMinoritiesNow And ThenReformationHaltBarbariansBreak ThroughFrench RevolutionHuman ProgressHorde Author:H. L. Mencken