Quotes about democracy (2106 quotes, page 7)

“People can be deceived by appeals intended to destroy democracy in the name of democracy. Dissenters who believe in the democratic creed may unwittingly advocate or legitimists may insist on preserving rules of the game destined to have unforeseen and unintended consequences disastrous to the stability and perhaps the survival of the democracy.”

Robert A. Dahl book Who Governs?

Who Governs?: Democracy and Power in an American City (1961), p. 325

People , Game

“Democracy and security do not fall from heaven — they come with a cost.”

Su Tseng-chang (1947) Taiwanese politician

Su Tseng-chang (2013) cited in " DPP fully committed to Taiwan’s self-defense, Su says http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2013/06/15/2003564827" on The Taipei Times, 15 June 2013.

“The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual.”

Henry David Thoreau book Civil Disobedience

Civil Disobedience (1849)

“Winston Churchill said that democracy was the worst possible form of government, except for all the others. Maybe we can say the same about capitalism. For all of its faults, it gives most hardworking people a chance to improve themselves economically, even as the deck is stacked in favor of the privileged few… Here are the choices most of us face in such a system: Get bitter or get busy.”

Bill O'Reilly (1949) American political commentator, television host and writer

[2000-09-12, The O'Reilly Factor: The Good, the Bad, and the Completely Ridiculous in American Life, Broadway Books, 12, 9780767905282, 00057892, 731339075, 6035584W]
Quoted in [2001-04-05, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,2517,00.html, "Sample Chapter of The O'Reilly Factor", FoxNews.com, 2007-09-20]

People , Business , Chance

“[In Germany] we have already experienced and passed through a vast variety of political systems and governments: constitutional monarchy, absolute monarchy, presidential democracy, popular democracy, dictatorship, and who knows what else. And we could all plainly see that neither of these systems was worth much. … There have never been so many qualified economists as in our days. Never has world economy been so sophisticated. Yet in spite of this, according to UN reports, more than one-half of humanity never eats its fill. … It isn't the Bible which is out-of-date, but our ideologies. The Bible guides us towards the future. … He knows how to govern. If you want proof of this, visit a home where Jesus is King - for such homes do exist even today - and you will be conscious of a different atmosphere as soon as you have crossed the doorstep.”

Wilhelm Busch (pastor) (1897–1966) German pastor and writer

When will the end come? 1.Jesus is coming back 2.Events preceding Christ's return p. 197 p. 200 p. 202
Jesus Our Destiny

World , Home , Future

“You never compromise with violence. You never compromise with intimidation. You never compromise by those who want to use those to extinguish freedom and democracy, because if you do then the very things for which you stand are extinguished.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

TV Interview for Channel 4 A Week in Politics (1 February 1985) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/105955
Second term as Prime Minister

Freedom

“In other words, the bar should be maintained at the level of a pluralistic and participatory democracy.”

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (1954) 12th President of Turkey from 2014

As quoted in Erdogan: "Democracy in the Middle East, PluralIism in Europe: Turkish View" http://www.turkishweekly.net/article/8/erdogan-democracy-in-the-middle-east-pluraliism-in-europe-turkish-view-.html, The Turkish Weekly (October 12, 2004)

“Membership in the social democracy means a struggle, a political struggle with grievous persecutions, and a private struggle for existence, a struggle that for the majority is far more difficult and heavy than the political struggle. And it is necessary, because the courage for this twofold struggle is created only by the consciousness that the injustice of society by which the great majority of mankind are to-day oppressed, corrupted and crippled, can only be abolished through a revolutionary movement, that is, a movement that shall completely exterminate capitalism with every fiber of its roots.”

Wilhelm Liebknecht (1826–1900) German socialist politician

No Compromise – No Political Trading (1899)

Courage

“Everywhere that there is aristocracy in the world, there is sympathy for the Confederacy, and rejoicing that this civil war looks like it's finally going to paid for good to these notions of democracy.”

Allen C. Guelzo (1953) American historian

2010s, Interview with Andre Damon (2013)

War , World

“If the people vote for my party and parliament elects me as prime minister, it would be an honour for me to take up that role and General Musharraf would be there as president, so I think that a good working relationship between him and me would be a necessity for Pakistan. … I would have the choice of either respecting the will of the people and making it a success or being short-sighted and putting my personal feelings about past events ahead of the national interest, and what I want more than anything is for Pakistan to prosper as we make a transition to democracy”

Benazir Bhutto (1953–2007) 11th Prime Minister of Pakistan

Destiny’s daughter (2007)

People , Feeling , Thinking , Success

“Well, no question decisions have made things unstable. But the question is can we succeed. And I believe we can. Listen, I'd like to see stability and a unified Iraq. A young democracy will provide the stability we look for. I will tell you that if we just isolate ourselves from the Middle East and hope for the best, we will not address the conditions that had led young suiciders to get on airplanes to come and attack us in the first place.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

60 Minutes interview http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/14/60minutes/main2359119.shtml in response to the question “But wasn't it your administration that created the instability in Iraq?” (January 14, 2007)
2000s, 2007

Hope , Question , Decision , Suicide

“The producer and director were developing my story to a mega series. They had shot around 100 episodes after which the ban was imposed. The Muslim fanatics in Bengal, supported by the ruling Trinamool Congress played havoc when the serial was to be aired. The chief minister was instrumental in imposing the ban. It is interesting to see that the same person (Mamata Bangerjee) is now advocating for freedom of expression and calling it super emergency,” “This is sheer double standard….. If some people do not like a representation of art, there are other ways to counter it. I never support violent attack on artistic freedom. I also do not support the trend of issuing fatwa. But, there are politicians, who support or protest on the basis of religion. Why are rules being tweaked for one particular community in Bengal? Why did Mamata Banerjee’s government never allow me to work there, allow my books to be published? Freedom of expression, the most important character of a democracy, is always under attack for vested political interest. Nobody criticises things neutrally,”

Taslima Nasrin (1962) Poet, columnist, novelist

Taslima Nasrin about Mamata, Economic Times https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/didi-tweet-on-padmavati-fuels-taslima-nasreen-fury-over-bengal-gag-on-tv-serial/articleshow/61762771.cms

People , Books , Religion , Art

“This volume explores the construction of collective identities as they relate to social movements and power struggles in the network society. It also deals with the transformation of the state, politics, and democracy under the conditions of globalization and new communication technologies. The understanding of these processes aims to provide new perspectives for the study of social change in the Information Age.”

Manuel Castells (1942) Spanish sociologist (b.1942)

Preface to the 2010, p. xvii
The Power of Identity (1997)

Age , Communication , Understanding , Study

“Successive governments have refused to accept the threat posed to our society by Islamic fundamentalism and extremism and to take the necessary measures to meet it head-on. We should esteem our own values of freedom, free speech and liberal secular democracy and start defending them.”

Gerard Batten (1954) British politician

Islamic fundamentalism is incompatible with freedom and Western liberal democracy https://web.archive.org/web/20070927174923/http://www.tfa.net/pdfs/60610.pdf (2006)
2006

Freedom , Success

“On this significant occasion, all Koreans pay tribute to the heroes fallen in defense of freedom and democracy. I firmly believe that future generations in both countries will further advance the strong Republic of Korea-U. S. alliance into one befitting the spirit of the new age.”

Lee Myung-bak (1941) 10th President of South Korea

A Note of Thanks (2010)

Age , Freedom , Strong , Future

“Was there something distinctive about American civil society that gave democracy a better chance than in France, as Tocqueville argued? Was the already centralized French state more likely to produce a Napoleon than the decentralized United States? We cannot be sure. But it is not unreasonable to ask how long the US constitution would have lasted if the United States had suffered the same military and economic strains that swept away the French constitution of 1791.”

Niall Ferguson book Civilization: The West and the Rest

Civilization: The West and the Rest (2011)

Suffering , Chance

“Union (and the liberal democracy it represented) and emancipation were not, after all, mutually exclusive goals. Unless the Union was restored, there would be no practical possibility of emancipation, since the overwhelming majority of American slaves would, in that case, end up living in a foreign country, and beyond the possible grasp of Lincoln's best antislavery intensinos.”

Allen C. Guelzo (1953) American historian

Source: 2010s, Gettysburg: The Last Invasion (2013), p. xviii

Country

“It’s six months since I did the interview with Jeremy Paxman that inspired this book, and British media today is awash with halfhearted condemnations of my observation that voting is pointless and my admission that I have never voted. My assertion that other people oughtn’t vote either was born of the same instinctive rejection of the mantle of appointed social prefect that prevents me from telling teenagers to “Just Say No” to drugs. I cannot confine my patronage to the circuitry of their minuscule wisdom. “People died so you’d have the right to vote.” No, they did not; they died for freedom. In the case where freedom was explicitly attached to the symbol of democratic rights, like female suffrage, I don’t imagine they’d’ve been so willing if they’d known how tokenistic voting was to become. Note too these martyrs did not achieve their ends by participating in a hollow, predefined ritual, the infertile dry hump of gestural democracy; they did it by direct action. Emily Davison, the hero of women’s suffrage, hurled herself in front of the king’s horses; she defied the tyranny that oppressed her and broke the boundaries that contained her. I imagine too that this woman would have had the rebellious perspicacity to understand that the system she was opposing would adjust to incorporate the female vote and deftly render it irrelevant. This woman, who left her job as a teacher to dedicate her life to activism, was imprisoned nine times. She used methods as severe and diverse as arson and hunger-striking to protest and at the time of her death would have been regarded as a terrorist.”

Russell Brand book Revolution

Revolution (2014)

Life , Death , Wisdom , Women

“Is “democracy,” as we understand the term today, an implementation of “self-government,” as this ideal was formulated when representative institutions were first established? The evidence is mixed.”

Adam Przeworski (1940) Polish-American academic

Democracy and the Limits of Self-Government (2010), Chapter 8. Democracy as an Implementation of Self-Government in Our Times

Understanding

“What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such … That is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”

Francis Fukuyama (1952) American political scientist, political economist, and author

1990s, The End of History and the Last Man (1992)

War , History , Universe

“We have no constitutional authority to police the world or involve ourselves in nation building, in making the world safe for our style of democracy. Our founders advised against it and the early presidents followed that advice. If we believe strongly in our ideals, the best way to spread them is to set a good example so that others will voluntarily emulate us. Force will not work. Besides, we do not have the money.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Speech in the U.S. House of Representatives http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul129.html (September 16, 2003).
2000s, 2001-2005

Money , World , Way

“The trouble with liberal democracy is that it takes a long time to mature.”

Mulk Raj Anand book The Private Life of an Indian Prince

The Private Life of an Indian Prince (1969)

Time

“It sounded far-fetched, but democracy transformed an enemy to an ally. I know it seems far-fetched for some to believe people want to be free in the Middle East and that freedom will take hold, I think it will. Because I happen to believe freedom is universal. I believe that deep in everybody's soul is a desire to be free.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2010s, 2011, Speech at the Gerald R. Ford Foundation (2011)

People , Soul , Thinking , Freedom

“The discussions have revealed the mistake, but not explained the problem, since even if you know what you will understand it for democracy.”

António de Oliveira Salazar (1889–1970) Prime Minister of Portugal

Speeches, Volume 4 - Page 250; of António de Oliveira Salazar - Published by Coimbra Editora, 1935 - 391 pages

Understanding , Problem

“Well, it was a radical concept to me. Like any other American, I wasn’t sophisticated enough to study all its facets. All I knew about it was it was foreign to democracy. And here I was, I had been fighting for democracy and always aware of two political parties and brought up in that kind of atmosphere. Anything radical was dangerous to me, as it was to the average American. Nobody knew where a thing like that would lead and we were always afraid of chaos. So communism became the doorway to chaos, and the doorway to chaos was the doorway to evil. Your family might be hurt. Your friends might be hurt. You didn’t want to see a thing like that.”

Jack Kirby (1917–1994) American comic book artist, writer and editor

TCJ Archive, Jack Kirby Interview http://www.tcj.com/jack-kirby-interview/5/, The Comics Journal

Family , Communication , Study , Evil

“The fault of democracy everywhere, including the United States of America, is that too few people make use of it.”

Bill Downs (1914–1978) American journalist

CBS radio broadcast from Berlin on March 2, 1949

People

“The social democracy of Germany must fulfill the role of champions of political freedom. The task of uniting the struggle for economic independence with that for political liberty has fallen upon the German laboring class.”

Wilhelm Liebknecht (1826–1900) German socialist politician

No Compromise – No Political Trading (1899)

Freedom

“That kind of skeptical, questioning, "don't accept what authority tells you" attitude of science — is also nearly identical to the attitude of mind necessary for a functioning democracy. Science and democracy have very consonant values and approaches, and I don't think you can have one without the other.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Talk of the Nation (3 May 1996)

Question , Thinking , Science

“To trample democracy with one’s feet and give power to a single man over almost eighty million people is so terrible that one can really tremble over the things that will come.”

Friedrich Kellner (1885–1970) German Justice inspector

September 17, 1939; Vol. 1, p. 26.
Diary (1939 - 1945)

People

“So what’s happened since ’92, it’s where the administrations that changed quite dramatically, the foreign policy, and it was working more like pendulum, swinging from one side to the other. Clinton did very little, W did too much, Obama has been doing nothing. It sent a message – sent numerous messages across the world. While people knew in the 50s and 60s and 70s and 80s that America was there, America was consistent. Even if you have a change in the Oval Office, one party replaces another, you could rely on the United States. America was behind American allies. Today? It’s probably, it’s a springtime to be an American enemy because this administration gives up everything to the enemies and betrays allies. And going back to George W. administration, it’s very popular to criticize Bush today, Bush 43. Especially for the Iraq invasion, and I’ve heard many voices, even within the Republican Party, it’s just floating with the popular trend. First of all, I have to say as somebody who was born and raised in a Communist country, I cannot criticize any action that led to the destruction of dictatorship. I think his people had wrong expectations. When they saw the collapse of Saddam’s dictatorship after American invasion of Iraq and then the collapse of a few other dictatorships during the Arab Spring, they had expectations that next day, it would be a democracy. It’s wrong. It was very naive because dictators succeeds the staying in power for so many years, not because he’s a nice guy, just helps his people to get out of poverty, but because he’s brutal, he’s cruel. He succeeds in destroying opposition, first political opposition and then freedom of press and remaining horizontal ties in the society. All the NGOs, anything that could represent not just a threat to him, but it’s any sort of the slightest dissent. It’s kind of a political desert. What do you expect in a desert after 10, 20, 30 – in the case of Gaddafi, 42 years of dictatorship?”

Garry Kasparov (1963) former chess world champion

2010s, Interview with Bill Kristol (2016)

People , World , Guy , Spring

“According to many of our political and intellectual elites, both liberal and conservative, the minority in a democracy enjoys only such rights as the majority chooses to bestow upon them. The Bill of Rights in the American Constitution—and similar bills in state Constitutions—are regarded as gifts from the majority to the minority. But the American Constitution, and the state constitutions subordinate to it have, at one time or another, sanctioned both slavery and Jim Crow, by which the bills of rights applied to white Americans were denied to black Americans. But according to the elites, it is not undemocratic for the minority to lose. From this perspective, both slavery and Jim Crow were exercises of democratic majority rule. This is precisely the view of democracy by the Sunnis in Iraq, and is the reason they are fighting the United States.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

2000s, The Central Idea (2006)

Exercises , Time , Fight

“Taylor’s friend Henry Gantt explains to his fellow engineers in the middle of the First World War that they must "develop a task system on the basis of democracy that will yield as good, or better, results than those now in operation under autocracy"”

Henry Gantt (1861–1919) American engineer

Source: Industrial leadership, 1916, p. 53 as cited in: Thibault Le Texier (2011) "Management Is By Nature Knowledge Management: Taylor, Scientific Management and the Early Organization of Knowledge".

War , World

“The struggle against demagoguery scarcely fits the St George-against-the-dragon myth. Our democratic St George goes out rather reluctantly with armor awry. The struggle is confused; our knight wins by no clean thrust of lance or sword, but the dragon somehow poops out, and decent democracy is victor.”

Norman Thomas (1884–1968) American Presbyterian minister and socialist

Attributed without source http://books.google.com/books?id=h04T6e77NsMC&pg=PA270&dq=norman+thomas+democratic+St+George&hl=en&ei=XjaiTNC5M4mdnAe5nNWIBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=norman%20thomas%20democratic%20St%20George&f=false in Senator Joe McCarthy, by Richard Halworth Rovere (p. 270)
Attributed

“I deplore the decision of the junta in Myanmar to continue the illegal house arrest of Nobel peace prize laureate and democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2009, Statement: on the latest conviction of Aung San Suu Kyi

Peace , Decision , Housing

“Tonight, as I see the drama of democracy unfolding around the globe, perhaps—perhaps we are closer to that new world than ever before.”

George H. W. Bush (1924–2018) American politician, 41st President of the United States

September 1991, The Watchtower(3 January 1992)

World

“I support our democracy. And sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. But I certainly will support the outcome of this election.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), First presidential debate (September 26, 2016)

Support

“Although this is less often commented on in the academic literature, democracy is as much about opposition to the arbitrary exercise of power as it is about collective self-government….”

Ian Shapiro (1956) American political theorist

"Democratic Justice" in The Democracy Sourcebook (2003) edited by Robert Dahl, Ian Shapiro, and José Antonio Cheibub.

Exercises , Literature

“The events of these last few days constitute one of the greatest diplomatic defeats that this country and France have ever sustained. There can be no doubt that it is a tremendous victory for Herr Hitler. Without firing a shot, by the mere display of military force, he has achieved a dominating position in Europe which Germany failed to win after four years of war. He has overturned the balance of power in Europe. He has destroyed the last fortress of democracy in Eastern Europe which stood in the way of his ambition.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1938/oct/03/prime-ministers-statement#column_52 in the House of Commons (3 October 1938) against the Munich Agreement.
1930s

War , Way , Victory , Country

“…It was therefore not sufficient to create—as some have said superficially—an anti-altar to the altar of socialism. It was necessary to imagine a wholly new political conception, adequate to the living reality of the twentieth century, overcoming at the same time the ideological worship of liberalism, the limited horizons of various spent and exhausted democracies, and finally the violently Utopian spirit of Bolshevism.”

Benito Mussolini book My Autobiography

My Autobiography, New York, C. Scribner's Sons, 1928. Reprinted in Benito Mussolini, My Rise And Fall, Volumes 1-2 Da Capo Press, 1998 (p. 68-9)
1920s

Imagination , Reality , Time

“Two very different ideas are usually confounded under the name democracy. The pure idea of democracy, according to its definition, is the government of the whole people by the whole people, equally represented. Democracy, as commonly conceived and hitherto practiced, is the government of the whole people by a mere majority of the people exclusively represented. The former is synonymous with the equality of all citizens; the latter, strangely confounded with it, is a government of privilege in favor of the numerical majority, who alone possess practically any voice in the state. This is the inevitable consequence of the manner in which the votes are now taken, to the complete disfranchisement of minorities.”

John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) British philosopher and political economist

Source: On Representative Government (1861), Ch. VII: Of True and False Democracy; Representation of All, and Representation of the Majority only (p. 247)

People , Idea

“The cherished right on which our democracy rests is meant for the expression of free opinions to change political or social conditions or for the advancement of human knowledge.”

Mohammad Hidayatullah (1905–1992) 11th Chief Justice of India

Full Court Reference in Memory of The Late Justice M. Hidayatullah

Knowledge , Change

“The only distinction that democracies reward is a high degree of conformity.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist

Source: Epigrams, p. 358

“Is democracy in crisis? This question is being posed with increasing urgency by some of the leading statesmen of the West, by columnists and scholars, and— if public opinion polls are to be trusted— even by the publics. In some respects, the mood of today is reminiscent of that of the early twenties, when the views of Oswald Spengler regarding "The Decline of the West" were highly popular. This pessimism is echoed, with obvious Schadenfreude, by various communist observers, who speak with growing confidence of "the general crisis of capitalism" and who see in it the confirmation of their own theories.”

Michel Crozier book The Crisis of Democracy

Source: The Crisis of Democracy, 1975, p. 4: Introduction note

Confidence , Mood , Question

“She was grumbling. “The least he could have done was drop us near a town. Although in these parts they’d probably burn us as witches before asking any questions.” She shuddered. “I’m an awful snob about peasants, I’m afraid.”
I mentioned dryly that I thought those of her political persuasion had some sort of egalitarian duty to resist such prejudice. “Egalitarianism isn’t about prejudices,” she said, “it’s about equal shares of power. It’s the only means we have of steering some sort of even course through a future which is forever, by the very nature of the multiverse, unguessable. We have only institutions and a crude, fragile kind of democracy standing between us and absolute Chaos. That is why we must value and protect those institutions. And be forever reexamining them.””

Michael Moorcock book The Steel Tsar

Book 2, Chapter 8 “Revolutions” (p. 419)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

Question , Nature , Future , Parting

“…A government as large as the modern megastate cannot conceivably be controlled by a well-informed public, since it is literally impossible to be knowledgeable about even a fraction of the many complex matters modern governments are called upon to govern. … The attraction of free markets … is that they have self-correcting features that place far smaller demands on anyone’s knowledge than democracy does. Each person concerns herself with her own life and the system, supposedly, runs itself. Interpreted in this way, the literature on public ignorance could form the basis of the consequentialist argument the postwar free-market economists sought, but never found … against all government economic intervention: for even if it cannot be shown, on economic grounds, that every intervention hurts more than it helps, it might be shown, on political grounds, that by opening the door to helpful interventions, we begin sliding toward the unhelpful ones on a slope slippery with public ignorance.”

Jeffrey Friedman (political scientist) (1959) American political scientist

Source: “What’s wrong with Libertarianism”, p. 455

Life , Way , Literature , Knowledge

“I must say, I'm a little envious. If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed. It must be exciting for you … in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger. You're really making history, and thanks.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Videoconference call with U.S. military and civilian personnel http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN1333111120080313?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews about the challenges of the war in Afghanistan (March 13, 2008)
2000s, 2008

Way , History , Thinking , Help

“Rhetoric, which I regard as one of the greatest dangers of modern civilization…"Self-determination" is another rhetorical term that may some day lead the nations into a bloody war. That is what rhetoric does. "Homes fit for heroes to live in," and "A world safe for democracy!" These, to my mind, are the quintessence of rhetoric, and it is against rhetoric in this sense that I am going to vote to-night.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech at the Cambridge Union (March 1924), quoted in On England, and Other Addresses (1926), pp. 94-95.
1924

War , World , Home , Sense

“The so-called natural sentiments of the average man are mostly the inherited prejudices of the once suppressed classes. The emphasis upon natural goodness is, psychologically speaking, unwillingness to submit such prejudices to wholesome self-criticism. Hence the democratic government tends to support each crowd in its delusion of infallibility. The crowd rationalizes its will to rule in terms of narrow and parochial ideas of righteousness and seeks to force conformity to such ideas upon all. The imagined vindication of the common man's notions of goodness is regarded as the ultimate triumph of righteousness. Hence democracy has always manifested a certain crusading spirit, and the democratic Utopia is envisaged as a sort of Roman peace with "righteousness" established by force rather than assent.”

Everett Dean Martin (1880–1941)

Source: The Conflict of the Individual and the Mass in the Modern World (1932), p. 22

Peace , Imagination , Idea , Support

“As late as 1947, Mao insisted that his program corresponded to that of Sun. Until December of that year, Mao insisted that his ‘new democracy’ would protect the ‘bourgeoisie’ and ‘their industry and commerce.’ Because of China’s backwardness, he would continue to support capitalist development and ensure that both public and private, capital and labor, interests would benefit from the revolution.”

A. James Gregor (1929–2019) American political scientist

Source: The Phoenix: Fascism in Our Time, (1999), p. 191, footnote 19

Support , Sun

“[Proportional representation is a] device for defeating democracy, the principle of which was that the majority should rule, and for bringing faddists of all kinds into Parliament, and establishing groups and disintegrating parties.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Quoted by C. P. Scott in his diary (3 April 1917), in Trevor Wilson (ed.), The Political Diaries of C. P. Scott, 1911-1928 (London: Collins, 1970), p. 274
Prime Minister

“I think the true discovery of America is before us. I think the true fulfillment of our spirit, of our people, of our mighty and immortal land, is yet to come. I think the true discovery of our own democracy is still before us. And I think that all these things are certain as the morning, as inevitable as noon. I think I speak for most men living when I say that our America is Here, is Now, and beckons on before us, and that this glorious assurance is not only our living hope, but our dream to be accomplished.”

Thomas Wolfe book You Can't Go Home Again

Book VII, Ch. 48: Credo
You Can't Go Home Again (1940)

Men , People , Dreams , Hope

“Work democracy does not wish to prevent or prohibit anything. Its only intention is the fulfilment of the biological life functions, of love, work and knowledge.”

Wilhelm Reich book The Mass Psychology of Fascism

Section 3 : Work Democracy versus Politics. The Natural Social Forces for the Mastery of the Emotional Plague.
The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933), Ch. 10 : Work Democracy

Love , Life , Knowledge

“Historically, most societies have been heavily skewed in favor of the power pole, and most of history— especially modern history— can be seen as a struggle toward the authority pole, that is, toward the institutionalization of a process of informed, consensual self-determination of the whole, which we call "democracy."”

Walter F. Buckley (1922–2006) American sociologist

Source: Society: A Complex Adaptive System--Essays in Social Theory, (1998), p. 186.

History

“Seeing someone in the position of James Clapper - the Director of National Intelligence - baldly lying to the public without repercussion is the evidence of a subverted democracy. The consent of the governed is not consent if it is not informed.”

Edward Snowden (1983) American whistleblower and former National Security Agency contractor

Interview with Glenn Greenwald, 6 June 2013, Part 1

Intelligence , Lying

“What then do we propose? We propose the establishment, after the thorough defeat of the Japanese aggressors, of a state system which we call New Democracy, namely, a united-front democratic alliance based on the overwhelming majority of the people, under the leadership of the working class.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

On Coalition Government (1945)

People

“We conceive the function of Tribune to be the expression in popular form, and to as large a public as possible, of the views of the Left and Marxist wing of social democracy in this country. Its policy must be that of those who believe that the present leadership of the Labour Party is not sufficiently Socialist.”

Anthony Crosland (1918–1977) British politician

Letter published in Tribune (1976).

Country

“All freedoms provided by democracy are for those who believe in it. Can the rights and freedoms of millions of virtuous people who believe in democracy be safeguarded if those who seek to destroy it abuse rights and freedoms to achieve their goals?”

Kenan Evren (1917–2015) Turkish general

An Uneasy Honeymoon, Time. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,952783-2,00.html (Sep. 29, 1980)
Said Evren in defense of the decision to take power after the 1980 military coup.

People , Freedom

“Is terrorism the greatest threat to our country, or a recession? I suggest to you today that the quickest, most direct way to ruin a democracy is to poison the information.”

Scott Pelley (1957) American television journalist, news anchor

21 November 2016 Speech at Arizona State University upon receiving the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism award. CBS News Anchor Scott Pelley Receives Cronkite Award from ASU' https://cronkite.asu.edu/news-and-events/news/cbs-news-anchor-scott-pelley-receives-cronkite-award-asu-0,

Way , Country

“The snail's pace is the normal pace of any democracy.”

Helmut Schmidt (1918–2015) Chancellor of West Germany 1974-1982

DIE ZEIT, 19. Oktober 2003, zeit.de http://www.zeit.de/politik/Interview_031030

“If I were to say anything to people I may say people should vote for those who are respectful to democracy, rule of law, who get on well with people. Telling or encouraging people to vote for a party would be an insult to peoples' intellect. Everybody very clearly sees what is going on.”

Fethullah Gülen (1941) Turkish preacher, former imam, writer, and political figure

"Fethullah Gulen: Powerful but reclusive Turkish cleric", 2014

People , Law

“Every attempt to develop systematic democratic theory has to confront the elementary fact that democracy can be, and in practice has been, interpreted as an ideal political system, perhaps (or probably, or certainly) unattainable in full, and also as an actual, historically existing system, a set of political institutions or processes that are attainable at least under some limiting conditions.”

Robert A. Dahl (1915–2014) American political scientist

Foreword : Reflections on A Preface to Democratic Theory
A Preface to Democratic Theory (Expanded ed., 2006)

“America is a country ready to be taken—in fact, longing to be taken—by political leaders ready to restore democracy and trust to the political process.”

Arianna Huffington (1950) Greek-American author and syndicated columnist

[How to Overthrow the Government, 1st edition, 2000, HarperCollins, New York, ISBN 0-06-039331-9, p. 174 of 317, The Quest for Leaders]

Country

“English: New York swines. Listen, I was a dissident, suppressed by the KGB, unlike very many present fighters for democracy. I never, in principle, in the program — it didn't occur to me that I should leave this country. It is my country. Mine!”

Mikhail Leontyev (1958) Russian television pundit

Сволочи нью-йоркские. Слушай, я был диссидентом, профилактированным КГБ, в отличие от очень многих нынешних борцов за демократию. Я никогда, у меня в принципе, в программе, в голове не сидело, что я могу из этой страны уехать. Это моя страна. Моя!
Михаил Леонтьев: "Пид…в не люблю! Это зря ты. Наверное, зря" (Стенограмма прямого эфира), Federal Post, 2005-01-24, 2007-03-25 http://www.federalpost.ru/www/print_18140.html,

Swine , Country

“One foundation for the future of American democracy is a sound administrative system, able to discharge with competence and integrity the tasks laid upon it by the people. The present system is far in advance of that which sufficed in 1925, but its improvement has no more than kept pace with the added responsibilities heaped upon it.”

Leonard D. White (1891–1958) American historian

Source: Introduction to the Study of Public Administration, 1926, p. vii (in 1948 edition), as cited in: Moynihan (2009)

People , Future

“The unanimously applauded, self-congratulatory bromides of a Soviet Party Congress seemed contemptible. The unanimity of the sanctimonious, reality-concealing rhetoric spouted by American officials and media commentators in recent days seems, well, unworthy of a mature democracy.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

The New Yorker: Talk of the Town (24 September 2001)

Reality

“I have nothing against the people. I don’t hate Muslims. But Islam is a totalitarian ideology. It rules every aspect of life — economics, family law, whatever. It has religious symbols, it has a God, it has a book — but it’s not a religion. It can be compared with totalitarian ideologies like Communism or fascism. There is no country where Islam is dominant where you have a real democracy, a real separation between church and state.”

Geert Wilders (1963) Dutch politician

Who Says Islam Is Totalitarian?, National Review Online (2009 interview with Jeff Jacoby), 19 October 2010 http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/250189/who-says-islam-totalitarian-andrew-c-mccarthy?page=3,
2000s

Life , God , Hate , People

“One faith, one law and one standard of justice did not mean democracy. The heresy of democracy has since then worked havoc in church and state... Christianity and democracy are inevitably enemies.”

Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) American theologian

Source: Writings, The Institutes of Biblical Law (1973), p. 100

Faith , Justice , Law

“Civil rights, as we may remember, are reducible to three primary heads; the right of personal security; the right of personal liberty; and the right of private property. In a state of slavery, the two last are wholly abolished, the person of the slave being at the absolute disposal of his master; and property, what he is incapable, in that state, either of acquiring, or holding, in his own use. Hence, it will appear how perfectly irreconcilable a state of slavery is to the principles of a democracy, which form the basis and foundation of our government.”

St. George Tucker (1752–1827) Bermudan lawyer and judge

A Dissertation on Slavery: With a Proposal for the Gradual Abolition of it, in the State of Virginia (1796)

Appearance , Personality

“Islam wants to dictate every aspect of life and society and prohibits individual, political and religious rights and freedoms. Islam is not compatible with our Western civilization or democracy, nor will it ever be, because Islam doesn't want to coexist, it wants to submit and set the entire agenda. Islam means submission from muslims over non-muslims – kafirs – like you and me, so there cannot be any mistake about its goal. Islam's end goal, for all time, is to dominate, to dominate and once again dominate and establish a world ruled by Islam.”

Geert Wilders (1963) Dutch politician

Speech held by Geert Wilders in Los Angeles (April 2009)
2000s

Life , World , Freedom , Time

“While reasonable men will ungrudgingly submit to such curtailment of their liberties as will promote at least the greater liberty of all, to the exact degree to which such curtailment may become unreasonable will the enforcement of it have to rest on force. Force against reason: reason, because it has the power of enlisting force to fight for it, will win. From the recognition of that truth has come democracy.”

Rockwell Kent (1882–1971) American artist

This Is My Own, p. 130 (1940)

Men , Truth , Fight

“A strategic use of black culture could help generate a more efficient use of American democracy, and democracy more effectively practiced could then produce a genuinely spiritual nation of people.”

Aberjhani (1957) author

(Author's Note, p. xvii).
Book Sources, Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance (2003)

People , Help

“Beyond the discrepant local sympathies of these careers – with their splay of temporary identities: Conservative, Zionist, Nazi, Old Whig – they reflected a common theoretical calling. […] In Schmitt’s own writing, the obscure figure assumes various – typically oblique – historical guises, as political or juridical restrainer in different epochs. But the Stygian cap fits the collective effort of this cluster of thinkers. For these were indeed constructions designed to hold something back. What they all in the end sought to restrain was the risks of democracy – seen and feared through the prisms of their theories of law, as the abyss of its absence: to misterion tes anomias, the mystery of lawlessness.”

Perry Anderson (1938) British historian

Source: Spectrum: From Right to Left in the World of Ideas (2005), Ch. 1. "The Intransigent Right, Michael Oakeshott, Leo Strauss, Carl Schmitt, Friedrich von Hayek" (1992), p. 26

Fear , Law , Effort

“I believe democracy is our greatest export. At least until China figures out a way to stamp it out of plastic for three cents a unit.”

Stephen Colbert (1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor

White House Correspondents' Association Dinner (2006)

Way

“In a democracy, thumping majorities prevail.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

“Planet Facebook Owns It,” http://www.ilanamercer.com/phprunner/public_article_list_view.php?editid1=652 WorldNetDaily.com, May 25, 2012.
2010s, 2012

“The Stalinism that followed the totalitarian intimations of Lenin's Russia, was not only totalitarian, it was infused by an ‘almost fascist-like chauvinism,’ together with a ‘bureaucratization, absence of democracy, censorship, police repression,’ and, as has been suggested, by an irrepressible and increasingly intrusive anti-Semitism. By the mid-1990s, it was increasingly acknowledged that left-wing totalitarianism more and more began to resemble right-wing totalitarianism.”

A. James Gregor (1929–2019) American political scientist

Source: The Faces of Janus: Marxism and Fascism in the Twentieth Century, (2000), p. 7

“The politics of the family are the politics of a nation. Just as the authoritarian family is the authoritarian state in microcosm, the democratic family is the best training ground for life in a democracy.”

Letty Cottin Pogrebin (1939) American author, journalist, lecturer, and social justice activist

Source: Family and Politics (1983), Ch. 1

Life , Family , Training

“The result of cutting [political power] up into little bits is simply that the man who can sweep the greatest number into one heap will govern the rest… In a pure democracy the ruling men will be the wirepullers and their friends; but they will no more be on an equality with the voters than soldiers of Ministers of State are on an equality with the subjects of monarchy.”

James Fitzjames Stephen (1829–1894) Indian judge

Source: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (1873-1874), Ch. 5

Men

“In fundamental theory socialism and democracy are almost if not quite one and the same. They both rest at bottom upon the absolute right of the community to determine its own destiny and that of its members. Men as communities are supreme over men as individuals.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

“Socialism and Democracy,” essay published in The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, Arthur S. Link, ed., Vol. 5, Princeton University Press, 1968, pp. 559-62, (first published, August 22, 1887)
1880s

Men , Communication

“There are men in the House of Commons, who profess in a special sense to be the representatives of Labour, who would not allow me, who represent a great working-class constituency…to claim to represent you. In order to do so I must be a man who did some work 30 years ago and never did any since. (Loud laughter.) It is these men who are at the present time blackening the characters of those who are upholding the British dominion and British honour throughout the world…They have no ear of sympathy for the men who suffered for the Imperial cause. The other day some officers, British soldiers, were murdered with savage brutality for no reason or provocation. They had no sympathy with those officers or the families that they left behind them, their only idea was to shield the assassins from the proper penalty of their crime. ("Traitors.")…But one thing I will say, and I say it in your name; these men at any rate do not represent the working classes of England (loud cheering), and never yet in our history or in the history of the British race has a great democracy been unpatriotic.”

Joseph Chamberlain (1836–1914) British businessman, politician, and statesman

Hear, hear.
On the Labour Party (7 July 1906), quoted in ‘The Chamberlain Celebration In Birmingham.’, The Times (10 July 1906), p. 11.
1900s

Men , World , Family , Penalty

“I suspect that democracy is not viable in a technologically advanced society. Free people wield too much ability to destroy.”

Daniel Suarez Daemon

Source: Daemon (2006), Chapter 45: Respawning, Character: Sobel

People

“Taipei has a responsibility to share its 60-year experience of democratization and economic development with Beijing. We also have a responsibility to make freedom, democracy, human rights and rule of law the core values for promoting cross-strait ties.”

Lin Chu-chia (1956) Taiwanese politician

Lin Chu-chia (2012) cited in " MAC sees Beijing reforms as key to cross-strait ties http://taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=198574&CtNode=452" on Taiwan Today, 13 November 2012.

Law , Freedom

“Our sacrifices are terrible. I can safely say that there is no other part of the world which has been devastated on a vaster scale than Yugoslavia. Every tenth Yugoslav has perished in this struggle in which we were forced to wrest armaments from our enemies, to freeze without clothing, and to die without medication.
Nevertheless our optimism and faith have proved justified. The greatest gain of this conflict between democracy and fascism lies in the fact that it has drawn together everything that was good in humanity. The unity of the United States, the Soviet Union and Great Britain is the best guarantee to the peoples of the world that Nazi horrors will never again be repeated.”

Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980) Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman

“Our Optimism and Faith” http://www.marxists.org/archive/tito/1945/02/04.htm Liberation magazine, page 3 (United Committee of South- Slavonic Americans, 1945)
Writings

People , World , Faith , Optimism

“Democracy and self-determination serve the overall goal of enabling human security and human rights.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

Report of the Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order exploring the adverse impacts of military expenditures on the realization of a democratic and equitable international order http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/IntOrder/Pages/Reports.aspx.
2015, Report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council

“The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

Section II: “What is Progress?”, p. 35 http://books.google.com/books?id=MW8SAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA35&dq=%22The+government,+which+was+designed%22
1910s, The New Freedom (1913)

People

“It's our duty to honor the dead by bringing democracy to this country.”

Jatuporn Prompan (1965) Thai television activist

As quoted in "Reds parade coffins as govt accuses "terrorists"" in Bangkok Post (12 April 2010) http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/174496/reds-parade-coffins-as-govt-says-armed-men-among-protesters

Dead , Country

“The contribution of Communism to the nihilism of democratic despair has been to shear humanism off democracy, to reduce the concept of democracy to crass materialism, to interpret life in terms of bread alone. The Nazis, as anti-humanistic as the Communists, have elevated the Communist Have-Not doctrine into a war cry for the Have-Not states.”

Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster

Source: "Let the Record Speak" 1939, p. 353 (newspaper column: “As Litvinov Goes,” May 5, 1939)

Life , War , Communication , Cry

“Social Democracy must remain for itself, must seek for and generate its power within itself. Every power outside of ourselves on which we seek to lean is for us only weakness. In the consciousness of our strength, in our faith in the world-conquering mission of socialism lies the secret of our extraordinary, almost miraculous success.”

Wilhelm Liebknecht (1826–1900) German socialist politician

No Compromise – No Political Trading (1899)

Secret , World , Faith , Success

“A democrat by conviction rather than by temperament, urging democracy as 'the only method consistent with human instinct toward expansion,' he was yet an educator, and believed in equality upon a high, not upon a low plane. Like Ruskin, he demanded of men their best, and with less than their best refused to be satisfied.”

Florence Earle Coates (1850–1927) American writer and poet

Mrs. Coates on Matthew Arnold—Literary and social critic who both encouraged and inspired Mrs. Coates' writing, and was a guest on several occasions at the Coates' Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania home during his stays in Philadelphia (31 March 1894). From The Critic, 31 March 1894.

Men , Education

“This is taking place inside Europe. This is taking place inside a once great nation. The nation that invented democracy. We are on the edge of total social breakdown. And frankly, as far as the euro is concerned and the austerity measures are concerned, the medicine is killing the patient.”

Nigel Farage (1964) British politician and former commodity broker

Segment from an article on the UKIP website, 31 May 2012. On the edge of social breakdown http://www.ukip.org/content/latest-news/2681-on-the-edge-of-social-breakdown
2012

“The manipulation of public opinion both by governments and corporate media, and the manufacturing of consent undermine the essence of democracy, which is genuine participation. The harassment, imprisonment and killing of human rights defenders, including journalists, in many countries shocks the conscience. But also certain aspects of the war on terrorism and the abuse of anti-terrorist legislation have significantly eroded human rights and fundamental freedoms. In a democratic society it is crucial for citizens to know whether their governments are acting constitutionally, or are engaged in policies that violate international law and human rights. It is their civic duty to protest against government secrecy and covers-up, against disproportionate surveillance, acts of intimidation and harassment, arbitrary arrests and defamation of human rights defenders, including whistleblowers as unpatriotic or even traitors, when in fact they are necessary defenders of the rule of law.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

Alfred de Zayas' comments to the remarks made by NGOs and States during the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council Session http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=13713&LangID=E Comments by Alfred de Zayas, Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, following the Interactive Dialogue on the presentation of his thematic report.
2013

War , Law , Freedom , Country

“Democracy would be wholly valueless to the proletariat if it were not immediately used as a means for putting through measures directed against private property and ensuring the livelihood of the proletariat.”

Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) German social scientist, author, political theorist, and philosopher

(1847)

“While many brilliant writers and speech makers have been battling passionately about communism, fascism, socialism, and democracy, our studies of how governmental organizations actually function have forced us to the conclusion that there is little significance to these terms. Indeed, it has been our general observation that not only in different countries, but from generation to generation men go on organizing their governments and earning their living in much the same manner. Notable changes and improvements can be credited from time to time to the scientists and engineers, and in general to improved technology, but throughout history economic laws and the processes of production and distribution display an utter contempt for changes in the political complexion of government. In appraising the many experiments in governmental organization that are being tried currently throughout the world, it is important that we should not be thrown off the track by the circumstance that the various revolutionary movements or changes in government have adopted different symbols around which to rally supporters. The vital point is the plain fact that, once the controlling group gets into power, the practical circumstances of the situation force the new leaders to organize the government according to principles of organization that are as old as the hills.”

James D. Mooney (1884–1957) American businessman

Source: The Principles of Organization, 1947, p. 14-15; as cited in: Albert Lepawsky (1949), Administration, p. 251-252 ; Parts published earlier in: News and Views. General Motors Acceptance Corporation, General Exchange Insurance Corporation, Motors Insurance Corporation, 1938. p. 8

Men , World , Law , History

“[E]ducation in a democracy, in our democracy, must use all the instruments of civilization, home, church, community, as well as school, for the adequate, suitable development of each child. This means that character and imagination, as well as heart and hand, are developed together.
Education in a democracy must consciously direct reading and observation, principle and practice to the happiness, the responsibilities, and the participation of group living. Government in a democracy is not “they,” it is “us.””

Aurelia Henry Reinhardt (1877–1948) American educator and social activist

Speech given to the Unitarian Radio Hour, reprinted in [McKanan, Dan, A Documentary History of Unitarian Universalism, Volume Two: From 1900 to the Present, https://books.google.com/books?id=4FBUDwAAQBAJ, 3 July 2018, 2017, Skinner House Books, 978-1-55896-791-5, 105-7]

Education , School , Home , Imagination

“I’ve learned from these events that self-esteem plays as much a part in the destiny of nations as it does in the lives of individuals; that self-hatred leads to the need either to dominate or to be dominated; that citizens who refuse to obey anything but their own conscience can transform their countries; in short, that self-esteem is the basis of any real democracy.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

Revolution From Within

Learning , Parting , Country

“With exceptions so rare they are regarded as miracles of nature, successful democratic politicians are insecure and intimidated men. They advance politically only as they placate, appease, bribe, seduce, bamboozle, or otherwise manage to manipulate the demanding and threatening elements in their constituencies. The decisive consideration is not whether the proposition is good but whether it is popular—not whether it will work well and prove itself but whether the active talking constituents like it immediately. Politicians rationalize this servitude by saying that in a democracy public men are the servants of the people.”

Walter Lippmann (1889–1974) American journalist

Essays in The Public Philosophy http://books.google.com/books?id=dCBruUK-qdcC&q=+democratic+politicians#v=snippet&q=democratic%20politicians&f=false (1955)

Men , People , Nature , Decision

“In a word, the home is a little dull. When you have got a woman in a box, and you pay rent on the box, her relationship to you insensibly changes character. It loses the fine excitement of democracy. It ceases to be companionship, for companionship is only possible in a democracy. It is no longer a sharing of life together—it is a breaking of life apart. Half a life—cooking, clothes, and children; half a life—business, politics, and baseball. It doesn’t make much difference which is the poorer half. Either half, when it comes to life, is very near to none at all.Of course, this artificial distinction does not strictly obtain in any particular marriage. There is an attempt to break it down. It is an honourable attempt. But our civilization is nevertheless built on that distinction, In order to break down that distinction utterly, it will be necessary to break down all the codes and restrictions and prejudices that keep women out of the great world. It is in the great world that a man finds his sweetheart, and in that narrow little box outside of the world that he loses her. When she has left that box and gone back into the great world, a citizen and a worker, then with surprise and delight he will discover her again, and never let her go.”

Floyd Dell (1887–1969) novelist, poet, playwright, critic, editor

[Dell, Floyd, Feminism for Men, The Masses, New York, 1914]

Life , Women , Marriage , Children

“Democracy is, by the nature of it, a self-canceling business; and it gives in the long run a net result of zero.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

Source: 1840s, Chartism (1840), Ch. 6, Laissez-Faire.

Business , Nature

“To what extent do the views of Madison justify the specific constitutional arrangements that came out of the Convention together with the political practices and doctrine that followed? I am now inclined to think that the connection was much looser than l indicated in my chapter on Madisonian Democracy.”

Robert A. Dahl (1915–2014) American political scientist

Foreword : Reflections on A Preface to Democratic Theory
A Preface to Democratic Theory (Expanded ed., 2006)

Thinking

“For I can assure you that in any war, even if it does not become a world war, I do not think there will be a victor who can do much. There may be one less badly off than the other. One side or the other may have sued first for peace. The destruction will be so great, the moral erosion of the experience will be so great, that it is idle to think you’ll find liberty, walking serenely among the corpses of the dead and the agonies of the dying. There are other things to do than that if we want democracy and freedom to live; there have to be other things to do than that.”

Norman Thomas (1884–1968) American Presbyterian minister and socialist

Debate with Barry Goldwater, University of Arizona campus, Tucson, Arizona, November 1961

War , World , Peace , Thinking

“Offending and insulting, is different from expressing an opinion that can be analyzed, argued on, and can eventually be accepted or rejected [therefore offending others is not acceptable] … But in addition to the west, we ourselves also have problems in this regard. Instead of logical criticism or debate, we only keep saying offensive things about liberalism, democracy and modernism. I had told some of our elders before, that the religion of the today's world is 'liberalism' and we have no right to make insults about it. We should not keep using phrases such as "the corrupt culture of the west" etc. in our words. As it's also said in the Holy Koran, "Do not insult the gods of others, otherwise you are indirectly insulting your God."”

Mohammad Khatami (1943) Iranian prominent reformist politician, scholar and shiite faqih.

February 15th, 2006, during a press interview in Tehran's airport upon his return from a cultural conference in Malaysia.
http://www.isna.ir/Main/NewsView.aspx?ID=News-667116&Lang=P; http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/iran/story/2006/02/060215_jb_khatami_cartoon.shtml.
Blasphemy

God , World , Religion , Problem

Quotes about democracy page 7

Quotes about democracy
page 7