Best Democratic Quotes

Democratic societies can’t force people. Therefore they have to control what they think.

Like a lot of people, I had this naive hope that Barack Obama would fix everything quickly. You know, the culture of celebrity in this country leads us away from democratic ways of thinking and into this hero worship.

And so of course, one man cannot swoop in and fix everything on his own. It’s much more complicated and difficult than that, and progressives in this country since then have had to come to terms with the fact that we need to do more than actually get out of our house and vote. It’s an ongoing process to turn the tide.

Libertarians regard the state as the Supreme, the eternal, the best organized aggressor against the persons and property of the mass of the public. All states everywhere, whether democratic, dictatorial, or monarchical, whether red, white, blue or brown.

Education is the great American adventure, the world’s most colossal democratic experiment.

One of the notable aspects of the democratic process is that one need not know anything about a subject in order to pass laws about it.

Authoritarianism is not pretending anymore to be a real alternative to democracy, but we can see many more authoritarian practices and styles basically being smuggled into democratic governments.

With all its faults, the American political system is the freest and most democratic in the world.

Russia’s inclination toward authoritarianism undoubtedly strengthened the leaders in Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Kazakhstan, as they are afraid of normal democratic procedures.

There is no society, however free and democratic, where wealth will not create an aristocracy.

Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that a planned economy is not yet socialism. A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual. The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralisation of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?

There is, indeed, a most dangerous passage in the history of a democratic people. When the taste for physical gratifications among them has grown more rapidly than their education and their experience of free institutions, the time will come when men are carried away and lose all self-restraint at the sight of new possessions they are about to obtain. In their intense and exclusive anxiety to make a fortune they lose sight of the close connection that exists between the private fortune of each and the prosperity of all.

At various periods in American history, people get pretty rambunctious when it comes to our democratic debate.

Democratic nations care but little for what has been, but they are haunted by visions of what will be.

If we start with limits and a premise of scarcity and fear, it makes us fearful of each other, and that makes us vulnerable to anti-democratic systems.

History, in a democratic age, tends to become a series of popular apologies, and is inclined to assume that the people can do no wrong.

What if the Soviet intervention was a blessing in disguise? It saved the myth that if the Soviets were not to intervene, there would have been some flowering authentic democratic socialism and so on. I’m a little bit more of a pessimist there. I think that the Soviets – it’s a very sad lesson – by their intervention, saved the myth.

What we see today is a world movement represented by the World Social Forum, involving all sorts of interactions across cultures, not to create some new ism, but to learn as we walk and to create more democratic forms of social organization that re-embed economic life in community.

The Democratic Party structure is keenly aware of who makes our party strong.

In a democracy, every ordinary citizen is effectively a king–but a king in a constitutional democracy, a monarch who decides only formally, whose function is merely to sign off on measures proposed by an executive administration. This is why the problem with democratic rituals is homologous to the great problem of constitutional monarchy: how to protect the dignity of the king? How to maintain the appearance that the king effectively makes decisions, when we all know this not to be true?

When I saw Fannie Lou Hamer speech I said, Well, how did this Democratic Party that Miss Hamer is talking about, become the Democratic Party that now is the party of the African-American community?

I think the Democratic electorate is similarly very energized. In both cycles we have new folks coming into the system who had previously been outside of the system, who may not even be Democrats. In both cycles we have a very well-known candidate who understands the process and a candidate who had to learn the rules.

Decision by democratic majority vote is a fine form of government, but it’s a stinking way to create.

Venezuela has gone from being a democratic country 15 years ago to being totally not a democracy today. Usually that de-democratization doesn’t take the form of a heavy handed police state.

I can’t quite remember the exact moment when I became obsessed with writing a play about the seemingly endless war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but I knew that I wanted to somehow tell the stories of the Congolese women caught in the cross-fire.

We must not allow the practices of an anti-democratic State that abuses the powers of government to violate the human rights of Venezuelans.

I am confident that just as a America`s commitment to the transatlantic alliance has endured for seven decades, whether it`s been under a Democratic or Republican administration, that commitment will continue including our pledge and our treaty obligation to defend every ally.

I just hope that the democratic will of the Zimbabwean people prevails. If it does we must move quickly to help restore stability and prosperity.

I want people to understand that, look, we’re in a period of democratic deficit, democratic recession. There are fewer democracies in the world today than in 2005, and in many of the countries that are still technically democracies, we’re seeing a reduction in the rule of law. And that’s especially true in Central Europe, but it’s also true of places like South Africa, the Philippines.

We have a two-party system: The Democratic Party, which is a party of no ideas, and the Republican Party, which is a party of bad ideas.

Nakedness makes us democratic, adornment makes us individuals.

There is a limit to the application of democratic methods. You can inquire of all the passengers as to what type of car they like to ride in, but it is impossible to question them as to whether to apply the brakes when the train is at full speed and accident threatens.

If you are going to stick to the truth then you need to keep your distance from the Chinese government and indeed to any form of politics, including the politics of democratic countries.

At its most basic the democratic contract is a simple one: the right to vote comes with a responsibility to society, through tax payments and citizenship.

You’re in the democratic West now, lady. Anybody’s as good as anybody else as long as he’s got the dough to prove it.

The citizens of Love Canal provided an example of how a blue-collar community with few resources can win against great odds (a multi-billion-dollar international corporation and an unresponsive government), using the power of the people in our democratic system.