Democracy Quotes - page 8

The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy. (Montesquieu)
I have one underlying principle in mind: the principle of Muslim democracy. It is my belief that our salvation lies in following the golden rules of conduct set for us by our great lawgiver, the Prophet of Islam. View quote
Muhammad Ali Jinnah
You have to stand guard over the development and maintenance of democracy, social justice and the equality of manhood in your own native soil. View quote
Muhammad Ali Jinnah
Those who come to power democratically can only be overthrown with democratic means. Those who come to power with elections can only go with elections. If a government can easily be overthrown with a few tapes and a few rumors, with such threats it means there is no democracy. View quote
Adnan Oktar
Liberal' comes from the Latin liberalis, which means pertaining to a free man. In politics, to be liberal is to want to extend democracy through change and reform. One can see why the word had to be erased from our political lexicon. View quote
Gore Vidal
...foreign policy of a pluralistic democracy like the United States should be based on bipartisanship because bipartisanship is the means and the framework for formulating policies based on moderation and on the recognition of the complexity of the human condition. That has been the tradition since the days of Truman and Vandenberg all the way until recent times. View quote
Zbigniew Brzezinski
Democracy means that if this man, you, and I will be trapped on an island, we having a majority of votes will decide that you have to sleep with us. That's the Democracy. And with 2/3 votes we can even put that in the constitution. View quote
Janusz Korwin-Mikke
Politicians that proclaim big words without meaning rule in democracy. At best they allow themselves to discover that it's better to be rich and healthy than sick and poor and that it is necessary to care for 'good of Poland. View quote
Janusz Korwin-Mikke
Of course I wrote most of the Constitution myself. I remember hesitating for a long time over the US presidential system. But it wouldn't have done - we were too trained in English democracy to sit down under a dictatorship which is what the American system really is. View quote
Éamon de Valera
Television is democracy at its ugliest. View quote
Paddy Chayefsky
Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around. (G. K. Chesterton)
The fabric of democracy is always fragile everywhere because it depends on the will of citizens to protect it, and when they become scared, when it becomes dangerous for them to defend it, it can go very quickly. View quote
Margaret Atwood
This democracy... The elections in Iraq were held despite the American opposition. It was the will of the Iraqi people and the religious authorities. [The elections] were the result of pressure by Ayatollah Sistani, by the Iraqi religious authorities, and by the fighting forces in Iraq on America. They left the US no choice but to allow the elections. View quote
Hashemi Rafsanjani
Since Israel is a democratic state surrounded by essentially undemocratic states which have sworn her destruction, those interested in democracy everywhere must support Israel's existence. View quote
Bayard Rustin
But now well democracy has shown us that what is evil are the grosses têtes, the big heads, all big heads are greedy for money and power, they are ambitious that is the reason they are big heads and so they are at the head of the government and the result is misery for the people. They talk about cutting off the heads of the grosses têtes but now we know that there will be other grosses têtes and the will be all the same. View quote
Gertrude Stein
Democracy is premised, in some measure, on majority rule, and democracy is difficult in a situation of concentrated inequalities in which a large, impoverished majority confronts a small, wealthy oligarchy. View quote
Samuel P. Huntington
Popular congresses are the only means to achieve popular democracy. Any system of government other than popular congresses is undemocratic. View quote
Muammar Gaddafi
Every single empire in its official discourse has said that it is not like all the others, that its circumstances are special, that it has a mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order and democracy, and that it uses force only as a last resort. And, sadder still, there always is a chorus of willing intellectuals to say calming words about benign or altruistic empires, as if one shouldn't trust the evidence of one's eyes watching the destruction and the misery and death brought by the latest mission civilizatrice. View quote
Edward Said
This is the criminal left that belongs not in a dormitory, but in a penitentiary. The criminal left is not a problem to be solved by the Department of Philosophy or the Department of English-it is a problem for the Department of Justice.... Black or white, the criminal left is interested in power. It is not interested in promoting the renewal and reforms that make democracy work; it is interested in promoting those collisions and conflict that tear democracy apart. View quote
Spiro Agnew
I believe women will lead the democracy movement in the Middle East. View quote
George W. Bush
I don't know whether it's age or maturity, but I certainly find myself committed more and more to the looser forms of Western democracy at any price. (John le Carré)
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. View quote
Rudy Giuliani
[partition of Ireland], ... the betrayal of the national democracy of Industrial Ulster, would mean a carnival of reaction both North and South, would set back the wheels of progress, would destroy the oncoming unity of the Irish labour movement and paralyse all advanced movements while it lasted. View quote
James Connolly
Under a socialist system every nation will be the supreme arbiter of its own destinies, national and international; will be forced into no alliance against its will, but will have its independence guaranteed and its freedom respected by the enlightened self-interest of the socialist democracy of the world. View quote
James Connolly
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. View quote
Upton Sinclair