“So those of us who believe in democracy, we need to speak out forcefully, because both the facts and history, I believe, are on our side. That doesn’t mean democracies are without flaws. It does mean that the cure for what ails our democracies is greater engagement by our citizens -- not less.”

As quoted in "To Dynamize the Audience: Interview with Augusto Boal" by Robert Enight, Canadian Theatre Review 47 (Summer 1986), pp. 41-49

"Chiz the whiz takes aim at the Upper House",The Philippine Daily Inquirer, 29 May 2005, p. Q1.
2005

Hanukkah dinner speech http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0550,lombardi,70903,2.html at Yeshiva University (December 2005)
Senate years (2001 – January 19, 2007)

"The priority of democracy to philosophy"

2017, Farewell Address (January 2017)
Context: It falls to each of us to be those anxious, jealous guardians of our democracy; to embrace the joyous task we've been given to continually try to improve this great nation of ours. Because for all our outward differences, we, in fact, all share the same proud title, the most important office in a democracy: Citizen. Citizen.

Letter published in the Manchester Advertiser (3 March 1911), quoted in A People's History of the United States (1980) page 345.
Context: Our democracy is but a name. We vote? What does that mean? It means that we choose between two bodies of real, though not avowed, autocrats. We choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee.… You ask for votes for women. What good can votes do when ten-elevenths of the land of Great Britain belongs to 200,000 and only one-eleventh to the rest of the 40,000,000? Have your men with their millions of votes freed themselves from this injustice?

As quoted in July 1994, from [Intervention & Change in Cambodia: Towards Democracy?, Peou, Sorpong, 2000, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 9813055391], pp. 195-6.

http://www.independentvoting.org/Bloomberg.html
Politics

On Freedom (1958)
Context: Although I consider our political world to be the best of which we have any historical knowledge, we should beware of attributing this fact to democracy or to freedom. Freedom is not a supplier who delivers goods to our door. Democracy does not ensure that anything is accomplished — certainly not an economic miracle. It is wrong and dangerous to extol freedom by telling people that they will certainly be all right once they are free. How someone fares in life is largely a matter of luck or grace, and to a comparatively small degree perhaps also of competence, diligence, and other virtues. The most we can say of democracy or freedom is that they give our personal abilities a little more influence on our well-being.