Democracy Quotes - Page 22

The will of a majority is the will of a rabble. Progressive democracy is incompatable with liberty.

In politics, an organized minority is a political majority.

I like the noise of democracy.

The only way to save the world is through socialism, but a socialism that exists within a democracy; there's no dictatorship here.

It is possible for a dictator to govern in a liberal way. And it is also possible for a democracy to govern with a total lack of liberalism. Personally I prefer a liberal dictator to democratic government lacking liberalism.

All such men are, or ought to be, agreed, that simple governments are despotisms; and of all despotisms, a democracy, though the least durable, is the most violent.

Democracy's my idea. I do not agree with communists, my acts prove. Free press in Cuba - free ideas, freedom religion belief.

In a democracy, you believe it or not; in a dictatorship, you believe it or else.

While the broad principles of democracy are universal, the fact remains that their application varies considerably ... We are at the beginning of the road, at the very beginning. We still have a long way to go.

Nationalisation...does not in itself engender greater equality, more jobs in the regions, higher investment or industrial democracy. The public knows this perfectly well, and so do the workers who have suffered from pit closures, steel redundancies and the run-down of the railways. It is idiotic to try to bamboozle them.

The experience of previous years leads to one conclusion: there is one morality in politics and another for economy. In the years since 1989, the morality of the economy has fully prevailed over the ethics of politics and democracy.

False rhetoric and false boastfulness spell moral ruin and lead unfailingly to political extinction.

Increase in the wealth per capita fosters democracy; but the latter, at least according to what we have been able to observe up to now, entails great destruction of wealth and even eventually dries up the sources of it. Hence it is its own grave-digger, it destroys what gave it birth.

As someone who lived under communism for most of my life I feel obliged to say that the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity at the beginning of the 21st century is not communism or its various softer variants. Communism was replaced by the threat of ambitious environmentalism.

I think democracy is the most revolutionary thing in the world, because if you have power you use it to meet the needs of you and your community.

Difference of opinion leads to enquiry, and enquiry to truth; and I am sure...we both value too much the freedom of opinion sanctioned by our Constitution, not to cherish its exercise even where in opposition to ourselves.

When widely followed public figures feel free to say anything, without any fact-checking, it becomes impossible for a democracy to think intelligently about big issues.

Why is it that aggression in the name of God shocks secular liberal sensibilities, whereas the act of killing in the name of the secular nation, or of democracy, does not?

Inflation is the senility of democracies.

Thus we can see that – at least at the level of economics – democracy is a sort of slow-motion suicide, in which you are told that it is the highest civic virtue to approve of those who want to rob you.

Our representative democracy is not working because the Congress that is supposed to represent the voters does not respond to their needs. I believe the chief reason for this is that it is ruled by a small group of old men.

Democracy wants to win by reason, not by arms or by any other material damage, because, look, I don't have to remind you that I am totally for peace. It is my greatest dream. It was and will remain so.

Widespread public access to knowledge, like public education, is one of the pillars of our democracy, a guarantee that we can maintain a well-informed citizenry.

Democracy's a very fragile thing. You have to take care of democracy. As soon as you stop being responsible to it and allow it to turn into scare tactics, it's no longer democracy, is it? It's something else. It may be an inch away from totalitarianism.

If democracy is justified in governing the state,then it must also be justified in governing economic enterprises, and to say that it is not justified in governing economic enterprises is to imply that it is not justified in governing the state.