Democracy Quotes - Page 102

Islam and democracy can function together.

Representative democracy frequently manifests a disconnect between parliamentarians and the people, so that parliamentarians have agendas that do not correspond with the wishes of the electorate. This has led in many countries to apathy, cynicism and large-scale absenteeism in elections. What is needed is not only parliaments, but parliamentarians who genuinely represent the wishes of the electorate.

Democracy is not the end product, but the means to the end, which is the enjoyment of human rights by all.

I think it is something that is so important, to be very aware of the direction in which the 21st century is going with all this blind faith in democracy. And by the way, I am not against democracy - I am against the blind faith that is being put in democracy.

In democratic centuries, on the contrary, when the duties of each individual toward the species are much clearer, devotion toward one man becomes rarer: the bond of human affections is extended and loosened.

What chiefly diverts the men of democracies from lofty ambition is not the scantiness of their fortunes, but the vehemence of the exertions they daily make to improve them.

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

In democracies, nothing is more great or more brilliant than commerce: it attracts the attention of the public, and fills the imagination of the multitude; all energetic passions are directed towards it.

Better use has been made of association and this powerful instrument of action has been applied for more varied aims in America than anywhere else in the world.

Despotism may be able to do without religion, but democracy cannot.

No men are less addicted to reverie than the citizens of a democracy.

Anybody who cares about the functioning of democracy should be concerned about the blurring of lines between public and private interests.

I don't believe in democracy by bayonet.

Democracy is an experimental system. I like it when states try out new ideas. I think we ought to expand, not contract, our federalist system.

Fundamental problem in American democracy is that we are allowing congressmen and senators to be bought and sold like sneakers.

Cuba is not like bourgeois democracy the ones that imposes the blockade to make Cuba change. We have direct elections. Here they put people on a list and then tell the people supposedly what they have done so they can be elected. That is the difference and why we say our democracy is truly participatory and popular.

We have a complete respect for history, we respect the experiences of other countries and we have our own, but the truth is that if the Cuban revolution had not been a democracy it would not have survived.

In Cuba, our experiment is not the best democracy and should not be a reference to anybody elses, it is ours. It has worked for us and the clearest evidence that our democracy has worked is that there is a revolution that has continued after a half century of facing down the most powerful empire. This has not happened many times in history.

I have a lot of faith and confidence in Cuban democracy.

In Cuba, we have a democracy that represents the humble, the dispossessed, those who make up the vast majority of the population. It is for those who carry the main weight of society's load in matters of the production of goods and services. These are not the ones that live from financial speculation.

I am thankful for our democracy, liberty, and prosperity, and that so many Americans have dedicated their lives to improving our country and our world.

Laws are important precisely because in a democracy they reflect the attitudes and aspirations of those they govern.

Most liberal democracies don't try to figure out what the truth is.

Public opinion is presumptively an input to policy formation in a democracy because politicians respond to it or at least are believed to respond [to it].

Mexico has become a robust democracy with a robust press and an active legislature. It has gone from being a sending country for migrants to a transit country, and increasingly a receiving country for migrants in its own right.