Democracy Quotes - Page 29

• The people made the Constitution, and the people can unmake it. It is the creature of their own will, and lives only by their will.

  John Marshall

  People, Constitution Of The United States, Made

  John Marshall, Joseph Potter Cotton (2000). “The Constitutional Decisions of John Marshall”, p.417, The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.

  71 Copy quote

  Show source

• Sycophancy toward those who hold power is a fact in every regime, and especially in a democracy, where, unlike tyranny, there is an accepted principle of legitimacy that breaks the inner will to resist.... Flattery of the people and incapacity to resist public opinion are the democratic vices, particularly among writers, artists, journalists and anyone else who is dependent on an audience.

  Allan Bloom

  Artist, People, Facts

  Allan Bloom (2008). “Closing of the American Mind”, p.249, Simon and Schuster

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• It would perhaps be as well if things were to remain quiet for a few years yet, so that all this 1848 democracy has time to rot away.

  Karl Marx

  Democracies Have, Years, Quiet

  7 Copy quote

• I'm very disappointed by the mature-democracy countries. I was ousted by a coup d'etat.

  Thaksin Shinawatra

  Country, Mature, Coups

  21 Copy quote

• In a democracy, someone who fails to get elected to office can always console himself with the thought that there was something not quite fair about it.

  Thucydides

  Office, Failing, Fairs

  "History of the Peloponnesian War". Book by Thucydides, Book VIII, 8.89, 431–404 BC.

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty. Democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.Entrepreneurs and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all the economic growth in the United States.

  Ronald Reagan

  Men, Entrepreneur, Growth

  4 Copy quote

• Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end; where all men and all churches are treated as equal; where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice; where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind; and where Catholics, Protestants and Jews, at both the lay and pastoral level, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood.

  John F. Kennedy

  Religious, Attitude, Believe

  Address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, delivered 12 September 1960 at the Rice Hotel in Houston, TX

  61 Copy quote

  Show source

• The world also remains a hopeful place. Calls for democracy and human rights are being reborn everywhere, and these calls are an expression of support for the values enshrined in the United Nations Charter. They encourage our hopes for a more stable, more peaceful, more prosperous world.

  George H. W. Bush

  Money, Nwo, People

  7 Copy quote

• There is no state with a democracy except Libya on the whole planet.

  Muammar al-Gaddafi

  Leader, Dictator, States

  "Gaddafi gives lesson on democracy". news.bbc.co.uk. March 24, 2006.

  98 Copy quote

  Show source

• Democracy is now currently defined in Europe as a 'country run by Jews,'

  Ezra Pound

  Running, Country, Europe

  38 Copy quote

• For 60 years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region, here in the Middle East, and we achieved neither.

  Condoleezza Rice

  Country, Years, Middle East

  "For Albright and Rice, Josef Korbel Is Tie that Binds". "All Things Considered" with Melissa Block, Michele Norris, Guy Raz, www.npr.org. June 28, 2006.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Never before has a populist democracy attained international supremacy. But the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands popular passion, except in conditions of a sudden threat or challenge to the public's sense of domestic well-being. The economic self-denial (that is, defense spending) and the human sacrifice (casualties, even among professional soldiers) required in the effort are uncongenial to democratic instincts. Democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization.

  Zbigniew Brzezinski

  Passion, Sacrifice, Self

  "The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives". Book by Zbigniew Brzezinski, 1997.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Democracy is direct self-government over all the people, for all the people, by all the people.

  Theodore Parker

  Self, Government, People

  Sermon at Music Hall, Boston, Mass., 4 July 1858 See Lincoln 42; Theodore Parker 1; Daniel Webster 5

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Puritanism, believing itself quick with the seed of religious liberty, laid, without knowing it, the egg of democracy.

  James Russell Lowell

  Religious, Believe, Eggs

  James Russell Lowell (1870). “Among My Books: Six Essays”, p.227

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I admire Russia for wiping out an economic system which permitted a handful of rich to exploit and beat gold from the millions of plain people…. As one who believes in freedom and democracy for all, I honor the Red nation.

  Frank Marshall Davis

  Believe, Russia, People

  15 Copy quote

• Law matters, because it keeps us safe, because it protects our most fundamental rights and freedoms, and because it is the foundation of our democracy.

  Elena Kagan

  Rights, Law, Safe

  Speech on Being Nominated to Serve as U.S. Supreme Court Justice, delivered 10 May 2010

  51 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have seen, and I know firsthand, indeed from my own pen, how the organized Right has sabotaged not only journalism but also democracy and truth.

  David Brock

  Journalism, Organized, My Own

  David Brock (2004). “The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy”, p.20, Crown

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Force, violence, pressure, or compulsion with a view to conformity, are both uncivilized and undemocratic

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Views, Patriotism, Pressure

  18 Copy quote

• The truest test of a democracy is in the ability of anyone to act as he likes, so long as he does not injure the life or property of anyone else.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Long, Doe, Tests

  Mahatma Gandhi (1967). “The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi”, p.347, Rajpal & Sons

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I don't know whether it's age or maturity, but I certainly find myself committed more and more to the looser forms of Western democracy at any price.

  John le Carre

  Maturity, Age, Literature

  4 Copy quote

• We do not understand democracy in its bourgeois meaning--of babbling, lack of discipline, anarchy. We understand democracy as the active participation of the citizens in formulating and implementing the Party's policy.

  Nicolae Ceausescu

  Party, Discipline, Citizens

  59 Copy quote

• If we can implant in our people the Christian virtues which we sum up in the word character, and, at the same time, give them a knowledge of the line which should be drawn between voluntary action and governmental compulsion in a democracy, and of what can be accomplished within the stern laws of economics, we will enable them to retain their freedom, and at the same time, make them worthy to be free.

  Winthrop W. Aldrich

  Christian, Freedom, Character

  5 Copy quote

• Democracy is still upon its trial. The civic genius of our people is its only bulwark.

  William James

  People, Genius, Trials

  William James (2012). “Memories and Studies”, p.33, The Floating Press

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• We need to get beyond the politics of the moment, the deficit of the hour, the military count of the day, the numbers that rarely shape events. Our long-term interests must be in people and in the values of democracy and individual liberty.

  Bill Bradley

  Military, Numbers, Long

  11 Copy quote

• Recreation is not a secondary concern for a democracy. It is a primary concern, for the kind of recreation a people make for themselves determines the kind of people they become and the kind of society they build.

  Harry Allen Overstreet

  Kindness, People, Recreation

  13 Copy quote