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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

“Aspiring dictators sometimes win elections, and elected leaders sometimes govern badly and threaten their neighbors.History demonstrates that democracy usually follows good governance, not the reverse.”

Sometimes Winning Leader Democracy Election Neighbor Dictator Reverse Governance Good Governance Elected Leaders

Author:Rudy Giuliani

“We see the tendency in the world to criticise democracy and sometimes even to say that authoritarian countries like China are more efficient. That is very short-sighted. China looks efficient only because it can sacrifice most people's rights. This is not something the west should be happy about.”

People World Should Looks Country Sometimes Democracy Rights Sacrifice West China Tendencies Efficient Criticise Short Sighted Authoritarian Government

Author:Ai Weiwei

“A spurious democracy has influenced both our research methods (I am sometimes tempted to define "validity" as part of the context of an experiment demanding so little in the way of esoteric gift that any number can play at it, provided they have taken a certain number of courses) and our research subjects (it would be deemed snobbish to investigate only the best people).”

Source: Selected essays from Individualism reconsidered

“Everybody has the right to speak up in a democracy. We would be in trouble as a society if there wasn't a constant pressure to make reforms and to be just. Sometimes as prime minister, when i was caught up in a really loud demonstration, I used to say to myself that I deserved it because of all the demonstrations I myself had organized as a student against Duplessis.”

Ifs Sometimes Would Be Used Speak Democracy Trouble Students Pressure Constant Caught Reform Loud Ministers Organized Prime Caught Up Prime Minister Demonstration

Author:Jean Chretien

“Self-censorship as a result of intimidation or social pressures, sometimes referred to as "political correctness", constitutes a serious obstacle to the proper functioning of democracy. It is important to hear the views of all persons,including the "silent majority", and to give heed to the weaker voices.”

“The mere fact of leaving ultimate social control in the hands of the people has not guaranteed that men will be able to conduct their lives as free men. Those societies where men know they are free are often democracies, but sometimes they have strong chiefs and kings.they have, however, one common characteristic: they are all alike in making certain freedoms common to all citizens, and inalienable.”

Source: An Anthropologist at Work

“People call me a socialist sometimes. But, no, you gotta meet real socialists. You'll have a sense of what a socialist is.”

People Real Sometimes Reality Political Politics Money Party Democracy Comedy Wall Taxes Socialism Ideology Call Me Free Speech Socialist Political Parties Free Market

Author:Barack Obama

“Are soft-hearted people handicapped in business? You have heard a businessman say of someone else, He's all right, but he's too soft-hearted.... To be soft-hearted may be handicapping, in a sense. But on the whole, a soft heart is to be preferred to a hard heart. Hard-hearted, severe, dominating giants sometimes manage to get further and to amass more money. But they get less genuine joy out of life.... It is the hard-boiled employer, not the soft-hearted species, that incites most of our strikes and does most to endanger the harmonious progress of democracy.”

“Excessive partisanship is the problem. There has never been a democracy in the history of the world in a polity of any size where you didn't have political parties. Even sometimes over the objections of the people who started it.”

People World Sometimes Problem Political Party Democracy Size Political Parties World History Objections Partisanship

Author:Barney Frank

“Democracy necessarily means a conflict of will and ideas, involving sometimes a war of the knife between different ideas.”

Mean Ideas Different War Sometimes Democracy Conflict Knives Involving Different Ideas

Book:Collected Works

Source: Collected Works

“I sometimes read that it's time for German democracy to finally grow up. I don't see it as a sign of maturity if we treat military missions as something normal.”

Ifs Sometimes Grows Growing Up Democracy Military Normal Treats Missions Maturity

Author:Guido Westerwelle

“In our democracy and our civic discourse, it seems as if folks who take religion the most seriously are sometimes also those who are suspicious of those not like them.”

Ifs Sometimes Seems Democracy Folks Discourse Suspicious Civics

Author:Barack Obama

“I believe in market economics. But to paraphrase Churchill - who said this about democracy and political regimes - a market economy might be the worst economic regime available, apart from the alternatives. I believe that people react to incentives, that incentives matter, and that prices reflect the way things should be allocated. But I also believe that market economies sometimes have market failures, and when these occur, there's a role for prudential - not excessive - regulation of the financial system.”

“I do not think an enormous permanent underclass is a very good thing to have if you're attempting to operate something that at least pretends sometimes to be a democracy.”

Ifs Thinking Sometimes Democracy Good Things Very Good Enormous Permanent Attempting

Author:William Gibson

“The democratic rule that all men are equal is sometimes confused with the quite opposite idea that all men are the same and that any man can be substituted for any other so that his differences make no difference. The two are not at all the same. The democratic rule that all men are equal means that men's being different cannot be made a basis for special privilege or for the invidious advantage of one man over another; equality, under the democratic rule, is the freedom and opportunity of each individual to be fully and completely his different self. Democracy means the right to be different.”

Men Mean Made Two Ideas Different Self Sometimes Opportunity Individual Differences Democracy Special Equal Advantage Opposites Bases Democratic Privilege Confused One Man Being Different

Author:Horace Kallen

“I support our democracy. And sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.”

Sometimes Winning Loses Support Democracy

Author:Hillary Clinton

“I'm sometimes impatient with young people who demonstrate at my meetings and who don't want an argument, but who just want to go on television as having been there and made a fuss. This doesn't mean I don't believe in participatory democracy.”

People Want Believe Mean Made Sometimes Young Democracy Television Goes On Argument Meetings Don't Believe Impatient Participatory Democracy

Author:Pierre Trudeau