Quotes About Democracy

I am a Mexican. The United States lived seventy-five years with the one party system in Mexico - the PRI - without batting an eyelid, never demanding democracy of Mexico. Democracy came because Mexicans fought for democracy and made a democracy out of our history, our possibilities, our perspectives. Democracy is not something that can be exported like Coca-Cola. It has to be bred from the inside, according to the culture, the conditions of each country.

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.

All the more reason we need to stand up for our democracy now. If we're going to solve the crises that are barreling down on us, we need democracy, and our democracy needs to start with an open and inclusive debate. That doesn't mean 20 candidates. There are four candidates who are on the ballot for just about every voter in America.

What worker or peasant can pay 80 - 90 million dollars to elect a senator or 4 billion to elect a president? Only great capital can do that. That is why we say that bourgeois democracy has been evolving in the last years into dollar democracy, this is not the democracy of sovereignty, and only the people can determine that.

The procedure we are pursuing is that of true democracy. Semi-democracy accepts the dictatorship of a majority in establishing its arbitrary, ergo, unnatural, laws. True democracy discovers by patient experiment and unanimous acknowledgement what the laws of nature or universe may be for the physical support and metaphysical satisfaction of the human intellect's function in universe.

I think that most people don't think in terms of an American revolution, they think in terms of a Russian revolution, or even a Ukrainian revolution. But the idea of an American revolution does not occur to most people. And when I came down to the movement milieu seventy-five years ago, the black movement was just starting, and the war in Europe had brought into being the "Double V for Victory" [campaign]: the idea was that we ought to win democracy abroad with democracy at home. And that was the beginning of an American revolution, and most people don't recognize that.

In my opinion, using different kinds of epithets and adjectives in connection with the word democracy is a sign of mere hypocrisy, to put it mildly. Either there's democracy, or there isn't.

Democracy must stand or fall on a platform of possible human perfectibility. If human nature cannot be improved by institutions, democracy is at best a more than usually safe form of political organization . . . . But if it is to work better as well as merely longer, it must have some leavening effect on human nature; and the sincere democrat is obliged to assume the power of the leaven. [Progressive]

[For business after WWII ] democracy means getting people to regard government as an alien force that's robbing them and oppressing them, not as their government. In a democracy it would be your government.

The problem with the United Nations is that while democracy within nations is the best available form of government, democracy among nations can be a moral disaster - especially if some nations are not democracies.

Full democracy requires the full participation of women. Your voices are vital. The word 'vital' means necessary for life. A democracy, to be fully alive, must include all its citizens.

I do believe that what I have called populist democracy is to be preferred to what I have called elitist democracy.

It is the evil in man that makes democracy necessary, and man's belief in justice that makes democracy possible.

It is quite possible that we will soon come to live under some sort of global despotism, enlightened or not. This is not a nice prospect. And there is only one way of avoiding that this happens: to establish a global democracy. And it is not too late to strive for such a democracy, of a straightforward populist nature, where people on the globe elect a world parliament, which in turn elects a world government.

If you give up on politics, you're giving up on democracy. And if you give up on democracy, you're basically saying to the moneyed interests, the powerful people and institutions of society, take it all. That's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Then we give up. Then we are 100 percent plutocracy.

We can enhance democracy by making it in line with its original vision. Read the dollar bill - E pluribus unum, out of many, one; novus ordo seclorum, a new order of the ages. That's democracy.

It is truly difficult to make a democracy. Democracy, like arty dream, is not made with spiritual words but with reflection and practice. It is not what I say that says I am a democrat, that I am not racist or machista but what I do. What I say must not be contradicted by what I do. It is what I do that bespeaks my faithfulness or not to what I say.

The basis of democracy is tolerance to criticism. If you can't face criticism, if you can't accept it, then you cannot guard democracy, you are not eligible for it.

We have to accept that capitalism is coming to an end. We can't provide paid employment for people, all the industries with technology are counter-intuitive to profit, and we have to have a transition to the conceptualist society. The only way to do it fairly is as a social democracy, a radical social democracy, which isn't compromised by neo-liberalism and isn't compromised by the rich, and isn't compromised by hegemonic, authoritarian interests: to have that balance between the government, the private sector, and then the individual citizens again.

We say that if America has entered the war to make the world safe for democracy, she must first make democracy safe in America.

I am the Doctor of Democracy. I am America's Truth Detector. And as the Doctor of Democracy, the deal you have with your doctor isn't changing. You get to keep your doctor. You get to keep your plan. You get to keep your station. Nothing's changing, and it really never was gonna change.

It is never smart, even in a strong democracy, to declare some debate off limits. In a weakening democracy it is catastrophic.

We must consider not only why the classical theory of democracy appears to be in contradiction with the observed practice, but also why the many different responses to this observation, though mutually incompatible, all share the belief that democracy is the best form of political organization.

Well, I would say that we've got to redefine democracy, that we have been stuck in concepts of representative democracy, that we believe that it's getting other people to do things for us that we progress.

If you want democracy, you have got to be prepared to accept the responsibilities of democracy. The people have to take part. They have to understand that they have the power to move things, and they must really commit themselves to change if they want it.

The other day, someone told me the difference between a democracy and a people's democracy. It's the same difference between a jacket and a straitjacket.

The ideals of technological culture remain underdeveloped and therefore outside of popular culture and the practical ideals of democracy. This is also why society as a whole has no control over technological developments. And this is one of the gravest threats to democracy in the near future. It is, then, imperative to develop a democratic technological culture.

Of governments there are said to be only two forms - democracy and oligarchy. For aristocracy is considered to be a kind of oligarchy, as being the rule of a few, and the so-called constitutional government to be really a democracy.

Every actual democracy rests on the principle that not only are equals equal but unequals will not be treated equally.Democracy requires, therefore, first homogeneity and second—if the need arises elimination or eradication of heterogeneity.

We need to take a close look at the relationship between the economic system of Capitalism and the political system of Democracy. A democracy with high concentrations of private wealth buys votes and interferes with the ability of Capitalism to perform well. It is no longer one citizen, one vote.

So yes in theory there is a kind of a formal democracy and in many ways these were achievements and an improvement over the feudal system and more advanced than anything else in the world, but nothing that we ought to call democracy.

Democracy is not tolerance. Democracy is a prescribed way of life erected on the premise that all men are created equal.

I always assume that democracy is the only good form of government, quite frankly, and democracy is always to be preferred

Industrial capitalism brought representative democracy, but with a weak public mandate and inert citizenry. The digital age offers a new democracy based on public deliberation and active citizenship.

Any comparison between the military dictatorship and democracy can only come from those who do not value the Brazilian democracy.

There's not democracy in the workplace. I mean, through most of our daily lives, the idea of democracy is fairly nonexistent. And I think things work better when the people who have to work with whatever it is we're working with have a say in how it's working.

Democracy is a request from a War Board, in the middle of a morning in the middle of a war, wanting to know what democracy is.

All forms of the state have democracy for their truth, and for that reason are false to the extent that they are not democracy

All freedoms provided by democracy are for those who believe in it. Can the rights and freedoms of millions of virtuous people who believe in democracy be safeguarded if those who seek to destroy it abuse rights and freedoms to achieve their goals?

The word "democracy" is a Western word obviously. It doesn't exist in Arabic. Democratiya is a loan word. We in the Western world make the great mistake of assuming that ours is the only form of good government; that democracy means what it means in the Anglo-American world and a few other places in the West, but not many others. Muslims have their own tradition on limited government. Now in Islam, there is a very strong political tradition. Because the different circumstances, Islam is political from the very beginning.

We're approaching the end of a bloody century plagued by a terrible political invention, totalitarianism. Optimism comes less easily today, not because democracy is less vigorous, but because democracy's enemies have refined their instruments of repression.

I don’t think that India is much celebrated for its democracy. Democracy has been a very neglected commodity at home and abroad.

It will be difficult, even painful, but democracy will prevail in Russia. There will be no dictatorship, although relapses into authoritarianism are possible.

We began to temper Western democracy with what I'd call a social contract. We put in Social Security, graduated income tax, workers' compensation. We developed strong unions to negotiate with business owners so workers got an equitable share of the profits.

Through money, democracy becomes its own destroyer, after money has destroyed intellect.

Women's fight for equal rights is essentially a humanist and peaceful struggle for true democracy, and a higher form of civilization.

Revolution means democracy in today's world, not the enslavement of peoples to the corrupt and degrading horrors of totalitarianism

My start in politics was watching my parents go to the polls on election day. It reminded me that being an active, engaged citizen and voter is critical to the success of our democracy.