Democratic Society Quotes - Page 2

• Democracy in itself does not define or guarantee a free society. History has told many stories of democratic societies that have degenerated into corruption, plunder, and tyranny.

  Richard Ebeling

  Democracy, Doe, Guarantees

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• Cities must urge urban planners and architects to reinforce pedestrianism as an integrated city policy to develop lively, safe, sustainable and healthy cities. It is equally urgent to strengthen the social function of city space as a meeting place that contributes toward the aims of social sustainability and an open and democratic society.

  Jan Gehl

  Cities, Space, Healthy

  Jan Gehl (2013). “Cities for People”, p.6, Island Press

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• A democratic society depends upon an informed and educated citizenry.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Library, Librarian, Democratic

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• The bulk of the totalitarian-minded in the democratic societies are men and women who are attracted to this destructive way of life for inner emotional reasons unknown to themselves.

  Joost Meerloo

  Men, Emotional, Atheism

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• It transmitted because on the campuses, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was recruiting, was organizing. Students for a Democratic Society was founded at Michigan just a couple years before I got there. So, there was a kind of a churning of political awareness. It was just beginning.

  Bill Ayers

  Couple, Years, Political

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• Now teach-ins are fairly common or they become common place. But in 1965, the Students for Democratic Society in Ann Harbor organized the first teach-in. The way it happened was that we were advocating for a strike that we advocated that the faculty should strike in solidarity with the Vietnamese struggle.

  Bill Ayers

  Struggle, Way, Firsts

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• Students for a Democratic Society was founded in 1961.

  Bill Ayers

  Students, Democratic

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• [Students for a Democratic Society] it's a social democratic program.

  Bill Ayers

  Students, Social, Program

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• Students for a Democratic Society was also affiliated with the civil rights movement everywhere.

  Bill Ayers

  Rights, Movement, Students

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• The end of Students for a Democratic Society is viewed by me and a lot of other people as a terrible sorry in many ways, tragic event even though I participated in it and played some role in it. But I regret a lot of that.

  Bill Ayers

  Sorry, Regret, People

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• Let's not use the term democracy as a play on words which is what people commonly do, using human rights as a pretext. Those people that really violate human rights [the West] violate human rights from all perspectives. Typically on the subject of human rights regarding the nations from the south and Cuba they say, "They are not democratic societies, they do not respect human rights, and they do not respect freedom of speech".

  Alejandro Castro Espin

  Play, Rights, Perspective

  "The Future of Cuba". Interview with Lasonas Pipinis Velasco, www.counterpunch.org. February 27, 2015.

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• There's just so many facets, I think, of the ignorance in our society that have to be corrected if we're really going to have a democratic society and a society that is just and that respects all of the members of this society regardless of who they are, what color they may be, what sexual orientation that they have or what gender, you know, they happen to be.

  Dolores Huerta

  Ignorance, Thinking, Color

  Source: www.npr.org

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• In a democratic society, as Max Weber said, what is possible is only possible because some people have demanded the impossible. The abolitionists helped to create a public discourse in which men like Lincoln become possible. That doesn't mean Lincoln is an abolitionist. It means there is a public opinion out there which is being influenced by antislavery sentiment.

  Eric Foner

  Mean, Men, People

  "Eric Foner on the Perennial Relevance of Abraham Lincoln". Interview with Aaron Leonard, historynewsnetwork.org. October 4, 2010.

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• The fact is that in my prep school, I went to a boarding school, 39 young men graduated from that prep school. Five years later, a quarter of us were in SDS, in Students for Democratic Society. Not because we were particularly chosen or because we were as I say, we were lucky but we were mainly luckily to grow up at a time where this black freedom movement was really defining the moral character of what it meant to be a citizen and a person.

  Bill Ayers

  Growing Up, School, Character

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• I think violence is counter-productive and it is bad in democratic societies.

  Pierre Trudeau

  Thinking, Violence, Democratic

  Source: presbyterianrecord.ca

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• [Students for a Democratic Society] was on many campuses and it was a powerful organization. It was founded by Tom Hayden, who passed away very recently. It was one of the founders of SDS and that chief writer of the Port Huron Statement, which is still worth reading. It's kind of the Bernie Sanders campaign document in a funny way.

  Bill Ayers

  Powerful, Reading, Organization

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• Bombs know no ism but barbarism. The laws that successfully govern a peaceful and democratic society do not interfere with the only law bombs know, which is the law of gravity.

  Clare Boothe Luce

  War, Law, Peaceful

  Clare Boothe Luce (1941). “European spring”

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• As a great democratic society, we have a special responsibility to the arts. For art is the great democrat, calling forth creative genius from every sector of society, disregarding race or religion or wealth or color. What freedom alone can bring is the liberation of the human mind and a spirit which finds its greatest flowering in the free society. I see of little more importance to the future of our country and our civilization than the full recognition of the place of the artist.

  John F. Kennedy

  Music, Country, Art

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• The strength of democratic societies relies on their capacity to know how to stand firm against extremism while respecting justice in the means used to fight terrorism.

  Tariq Ramadan

  Mean, Fighting, Justice

  "Living together takes effort" by Tariq Ramadan, www.theguardian.com. July 08, 2005.

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• China has seen a great deal of economic progress. It's certainly rather of a miracle. The growing role of the market in the economy will force China to open up its political system over time and to move toward a more democratic society. So taken as a whole, the one real failure in this whole business has been Russia.

  Milton Friedman

  Real, Moving, Taken

  Source: www.npr.org

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• The Civil Rights Act of 1964 laid the foundation for the Voting Rights Act of 1965, but it also addressed nearly every other aspect of daily life in a would-be free democratic society.

  Aberjhani

  Rights, Voting, Foundation

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• What is invaluable about Angela Davis work is that she does not limit her politics to issues removed from broader social considerations, but connects every aspect of her scholarship and public interventions to what the contours of a truly democratic society might look like.

  Henry Giroux

  Issues, Limits, Doe

  "Angela Davis, Education and the Meaning of Freedom" by Henry A. Giroux, www.huffingtonpost.com. April 10, 2013.

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• Democracy has always been in crisis: democracy is all about practicing the art of bearable dissatisfaction. In democratic societies, people often complain about their leaders and their institutions. The gap between the ideal democracy and the existing one cannot be bridged.

  Ivan Krastev

  Art, Democracies Have, People

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• The devotion of democracy to education is a familiar fact. The superficial explanation is that a government resting upon popular suffrage cannot be successful unless those who elect and who obey their governors are educated. Since a democratic society repudiates the principle of external authority, it must find a substitute in voluntary disposition and interest; these can be created only by education.

  John Dewey

  Education, Successful, Government

  John Dewey (2015). “Democracy and Education: Top American Authors”, p.66, 谷月社

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• Since a democratic society repudiates the principle of external authority, it must find a substitute in voluntary disposition and interest; these can be created only by education.

  John Dewey

  Education, Principles, Authority

  John Dewey (2015). “Democracy and Education: Top American Authors”, p.66, 谷月社

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