Democracy Quotes

"Our mission is clear: NATO strives to secure a lasting peace in Europe, based on common values of individual liberty, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law"

Jens Stoltenberg, Politician

"The first and continuing argument for the curtailment of working hours and the raising of the minimum age was that education was necessary in a democracy and working children could not attend school"

Grace Abbott, Activist

"While democracy must have its organization and controls, its vital breath is individual liberty"

Charles Evans Hughes, Judge

"Standards of conduct appropriate to civil society or the workings of a democracy cannot be purely and simply applied to the Church"

Joseph Ratzinger, Clergyman

"I'm not overly alarmist about it, but I do think there are some worrying signs, like the growing accumulation of wealth by a very small proportion of the population, plus elections in the US are much more dominated by money than anywhere else calling itself a democracy"

Peter Singer, Philosopher

"In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock!"

Graham Greene, Playwright

"No matter how many troops we have in place or how long they stay, we cannot impose a parliamentary democracy there any more than the insurgents can impose a theocracy"

Nick Clooney, Politician

"A democracy, the realistic observer is forced to conclude, is likely to be idealistic in its feelings about itself, but imperialistic about its practice"

Irving Babbitt, Critic

"Education and democracy have the same goal: the fullest possible development of human capabilities"

Paul Wellstone, Politician

"If you say simply that pressures toward democracy are created by the market, I would say yes"

Peter L. Berger, Sociologist

"I think Russian people are learning that democracy is not an alien thing; it's not a western invention"

Garry Kasparov, Celebrity

"In our system of democracy, our government works on a system of checks and balances. Instead of stripping power from the courts, I believe we should follow the process prescribed in our Constitution - consideration of a Constitutional amendment"

Dennis Cardoza, Politician

"The EU will face problems similar to the US: an increasing gap between the citizens and decision makers in Brussels and a perceived or even real lack of democracy"

David Korten, Activist

"It's true that General Musharraf opposes my return, seeing me as a symbol of democracy in the country. He is comfortable with dictatorship. I hope better sense prevails"

Benazir Bhutto, Leader

"And in a democracy, when we say we're mad at what's going on, what we need to be saying is we're mad at ourselves"

Mike Lowry, Politician

"So long as we have enough people in this country willing to fight for their rights, we'll be called a democracy"

Roger Nash Baldwin, Activist

"Only that Swiss in the heart want still a king or at least a strong Upper House of Parliament. Swiss long themselves for less democracy and more dictatorship"

Peter Bichsel, Writer

"Terror is only justice: prompt, severe and inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue; it is less a distinct principle than a natural consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing wants of the country"

Maximilien Robespierre, Leader

"But if we had to trade with a Europe dominated by the present German trade policies, we might have to change our methods to some totalitarian form. This is a prospect that any lover of democracy must view with consternation"

Wendell Willkie, Lawyer

"Far from being the product of a democratic revolution and of an opposition to English institutions, the constitution of the United States was the result of a powerful reaction against democracy, and in favor of the traditions of the mother country"

John Acton, Historian

"The fate of every democracy, of every government based on the sovereignty of the people, depends on the choices it makes between these opposite principles, absolute power on the one hand, and on the other the restraints of legality and the authority of tradition"

John Acton, Historian

"War on terrorism defines the central preoccupation of the United States in the world today, and it does reflect in my view a rather narrow and extremist vision of foreign policy of the world's first superpower, of a great democracy, with genuinely idealistic traditions"

Zbigniew Brzezinski, Politician

"As long as we're in a democracy, I have to give what I think the majority of people will enjoy"

Norman Granz, Musician

"Let me say again that the relationship is asymmetrical: there's no democracy without a market economy, but you can have a market economy without democracy"

Peter L. Berger, Sociologist

"The defense of our democracy against the forces that threaten it from without has made some of its failures to function at home glaringly apparent"

Wendell Willkie, Lawyer

"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both"

Louis D. Brandeis, Judge

"To say that most of us today are purely expansive is only another way of saying that most of us continue to be more concerned with the quantity than with the quality of our democracy"

Irving Babbitt, Critic

"But at the same time, I think we recognize we can't impose democracy from without, particularly American-style democracy. We need to work with those elements in the region that are moving towards a reformed process and there are a number of them"

Frank Carlucci, Politician

"If a man went simply by what he saw, he might be tempted to affirm that the essence of democracy is melodrama"

Irving Babbitt, Critic

"We've got to understand that the whole nature of the way American democracy guards its freedom has been changed"

John Ashcroft, Public Servant

"The idea of democracy has been stripped of it moral imperatives and come to denote hollowness and hypocrisy"

Paul Wellstone, Politician

"The American polity is infected with a serious imbalance of power between elites and masses, a power which is the principal threat to our democracy"

Paul Wellstone, Politician

"So I think one can say on empirical grounds - not because of some philosophical principle - that you can't have democracy unless you have a market economy"

Peter L. Berger, Sociologist

"Even in a society as tightly controlled as Singapore's, the market creates certain forces which perhaps in the long run may lead to democracy"

Peter L. Berger, Sociologist

"As free citizens in a political democracy, we have a responsibility to be interested and involved in the affairs of the human community, be it at the local or the global level"

Paul Wellstone, Politician

"This country has always been run by elite, and it's an elitist democracy. And that's not a radical concept. It's elitist democracy. When people talk about democracy, they don't talk - really talk about participatory democracy, until the point that we get us at Election Day"

Danny Glover, Actor

"Ultimately, freedom and democracy are stronger than fear and tyranny"

Gijs de Vries, Politician

"We have shown that Islam can rule the world perfectly for 14 centuries, and during this time of Muslim power we did not borrow ideas like democracy from others, so why do we need to learn democracy from them now?"

Abu Bakar Bashir, Activist

"As Taiwan's friend and ally, I believe it is important for the United States to monitor the situation in the Taiwan Strait very carefully to help ensure Taiwan is not forced into a position which would endanger its freedom or its democracy"

Jim Costa, Politician

"I think that it's a vital moment now for Russian democracy to convince people that it's only our actions, our joined actions and protests that could force Kremlin to reconsider its plans to abolish presidential elections"

Garry Kasparov, Celebrity

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