Democracy Quotes - Page 23

• Democracy in the contemporary world demands, among other things, an educated and informed people.

  Elizabeth Bishop

  Women, People, World

  Elizabeth Bishop (1962). “LIFE WORLD LIBRARY BRAZIL”

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• We are thus brought to a conception of Democracy not merely as a sentiment which desires the well-being of all men, nor yet as a creed which believes in the essential dignity and equality of all men, but as that which affords a rule of living as well as a test of faith.

  Jane Addams

  Women, Believe, Desire

  Jane Addams (2016). “Democracy and Social Ethics”, p.12, Youcanprint

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• Courts are an aristocratic institution in a democracy. That's the dilemma for an institution that has the function of reviewing the will of the people. We're bound to be "anti-majoritarian."

  Rose Bird

  Women, People, Institutions

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• A democratic form of government, a democratic way of life, presupposes free public education over a long period; it presupposes also an education for personal responsibility that too often is neglected.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Education, Women, School

  Eleanor Roosevelt (1995). “What I Hope to Leave Behind: The Essential Essays of Eleanor Roosevelt”, Carlson Pub

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• My belief in the growth and permanence of democracy is undimmed. I know that the people will cast off the new dictatorship as they did the old. I believe as firmly as in my youth that humanity will surmount the era of poverty and war. Life will be happier and more beautiful for all. I believe in the GOLDEN AGE.

  Sylvia Pankhurst

  Beautiful, War, Women

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• Every democratic system evolves its own conventions. It is not only the water but the banks which make the river.

  Indira Gandhi

  Women, Rivers, Water

  Indira Gandhi (1975). “India: The Speeches and Reminiscences of Indira Gandhi”

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• Democracies have been, and governments called, free; but the spirit of independence and the consciousness of unalienable rights, were never before transfused into the minds of a whole people....The feeling of equality which they proudly cherish does not proceed from an ignorance of their station, but from the knowledge of their rights; and it is this knowledge which will render it so exceedingly difficult for any tyrant ever to triumph over the liberties of our country.

  Sarah Josepha Hale

  Country, Women, Ignorance

  Sarah Josepha Buell Hale (1828). “Ladies' Magazine”, p.443

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• The idea that each individual has intrinsic, God-given value and is of infinite worth quite apart from any social contribution - an idea most pagans would have rejected as absurd - persists today as the ethical basis of western law and politics. Our secularized western idea of democratic society owes much to that early Christian vision of a new society - a society no longer formed by the natural bonds of family, tribe, or nation but by the voluntary choice of its members.

  Elaine Pagels

  Christian, Women, Law

  Elaine Pagels (2011). “Adam, Eve, and the Serpent: Sex and Politics in Early Christianity”, p.81, Vintage

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• When women are pessimistic about their political strength and feel hopeless about changing the conditions of their lives, it is almost as if they do not believe that democracy means the country belongs to them. But it's true.

  Naomi Wolf

  Country, Women, Believe

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• We must make democracy the popular creed...If we should fail to do this, our people are bound to suffer... That is what my father said. It is the reason why I am participating in this struggle.

  Aung San Suu Kyi

  Father, Struggle, People

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• Democracy must first be safe for America before it can be safe for the world.

  Emma Goldman

  Women, America, Safe

  Emma Goldman (1968). “Mother Earth Bulletin”

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• Our real battlefield today is Asia and our real battle is the one between democracy and communism. . . . We have to prove to the world and particularly to downtrodden areas of the world which are the natural prey to the principles of communist economics that democracy really brings about happier and better conditions for the people as a whole.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Real, Women, People

  Eleanor Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Steve Neal (2002). “Eleanor and Harry: The Correspondence of Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman”, p.156, Simon and Schuster

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• The paradox of American democracy has been that its slogan of equal opportunity has meant, often, equal opportunity to get power over your fellows.

  Mary Parker Follett

  Women, Opportunity, Democracies Have

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• It is obvious that the most despotic forms of social organization would be suitable for inert men who are satisfied with the situation fate has placed them in, and that the most abstract form of democratic theory would be practicable among sages guided only by their reason. The only problem is to what degree it is possible to excite or to contain the passions without endangering public happiness.

  Madame de Stael

  Women, Passion, Fate

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• You see few people here in America who really care very much about living a Christian life in a democratic world.

  Clare Boothe Luce

  Christian, Women, America

  Clare Boothe Luce (1941). “European spring”

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• For our democracy has been marred by imperialism, and it has been enlightened only by individual and sporadic efforts at freedom.

  Pearl S. Buck

  Women, Democracies Have, Effort

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• We have forgotten that democracy must live as it thinks and think as it lives.

  Agnes Meyer Driscoll

  Women, Thinking, Forgotten

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• The first step toward liberation of any group is to use the power in hand... And the power in hand is the vote.

  Helen Gahagan Douglas

  Women, Hands, Groups

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• The great majority of women are more intelligent, better educated, and far more moral than multitudes of men whose right to vote no man questions.

  Lucy Stone

  Women, Intelligent, Majority

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• Democracy was the right of the people to choose their own tyrant.

  James Madison

  Tyrants, People

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• It is one of the evils of democratical governments, that the people, not always seeing and frequently misled, must often feel before they can act.

  George Washington

  Government, People, Evil

  George Washington (1855). “Maxims of Washington: Political, Social, Moral, and Religious”, p.21

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• If we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Too Much, Monarchy, Incline

  Alexander Hamilton (1850). “The works of Alexander Hamilton: comprising his correspondence, and his political and official writings, exclusive of the Federalist, civil and military. Published from the original manuscripts deposited in the Department of State, by order of the Joint Library Committee of Congress”, p.417

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• Where a majority are united by a common sentiment, and have an opportunity, the rights of the minor party become insecure.

  James Madison

  Party, Insecure, Opportunity

  James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

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• The will of the nation is one of those phrases most widely abused by schemers and tyrants of all ages.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Tyrants, Age, Phrases

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• No tempest or conflagration, however great, is harder to quell than mob carried away by the novelty of power.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Novelty, Tempest, Harder

  Marcus Tullius Cicero, Niall Rudd (2008). “The Republic and The Laws”, p.30, Oxford University Press

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