Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule—and both commonly succeed, and are right.

Democrasy comes into grave danger when truth is no longer spoken to power.

Authority is not a power, it is a responsibility.

Under observation, we act less free, which means we effectively are less free.

Errors do not cease to be errors simply because they’re ratified into law.

It’s an election year. We would prefer that voters didn’t use common sense.

India had a very long independence movement. It started in 1886, [with] the first generation of Western-educated Indians. They were all liberals. They followed the Liberal Party in Britain, and they were very proud of...

Here we introduce the nation’s first great communications monopolist, whose reign provides history’s first lesson in the power and peril of concentrated control over the flow of information. Western Union’s man was one Rutherford B....

To view the opposition as dangerous is to misunderstand the basic concepts of democracy. To oppress the opposition is to assault the very foundation of democracy.

The aspirations of democracy are based on the notion of an informed citizenry, capable of making wise decisions. The choices we are asked to make become increasingly complex. They require the longer-term thinking and greater...

Christians – at least Christians in a liberal democracy – have accepted, after Thomas Hobbes, that they must obey the secular rule of law; that there must be a separation of church and state.

I already know who won today’s election, … Because this vote was carried out according to regulations, Peru and democracy have won today.

Ohne Gedankenfreiheit gibt es keine Weisheit. Und ohne Redefreiheit keine öffentliche Freiheit.

Democracy arose from men’s thinking that if they are equal in any respect, they are equal absolutely.

Pops added,”you know, they say if you don’t vote, you get the government you deserve.””And if you do, you never get the results you expected,” (Katherine) replied.

The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism:...

Everybody has a right to be defended, and every lawyer has a duty to defend people accused. And my office is to defend him, to discuss the accusation point by point, as I think this...

International politics is never about democracy and human rights. It’s about the interests of states. Remember that, no matter what you are told in history lessons.

The real origin of the democratic spirit – and most likely, many democratic institutions – lies precisely in those spaces of improvisation just outside the control of governments and organized churches.

A functioning, robust democracy requires a healthy educated, participatory followership, and an educated, morally grounded leadership.

I like the noise of democracy.

There are many countries but few nations. We are committed to building Nigeria into a most desirable nation to live

Democracy is supposed to give you the feeling of choice, like Painkiller X and Painkiller Y. But they’re both just aspirin.

Honey, it isn’t democracy that runs this country. Capitalism rules. It does no good to reason with the capitalists or their politicians. This is a class war. We have to stir up the American people,...

If information and knowledge are central to democracy, they are conditions for development.

When trouble arise among faraway people, we remain tempted to hide behind the principle of national sovereignty, to “mind our own business” when it is convenient, and to think of democracy as a suit to...

What if good institutions were in fact the product of good intentions? What if the cynicism that is supposed to be rigor and the acquisitiveness that is supposed to be realism are making us forget...

He did not raise anything about democracy or human rights in Malaysia,

Greece isn’t a democracy now it’s run through a troika – three foreign officials that fly into Athens airport and tell the Greeks what they can and can’t do.

As opposition leader, [Stephen Harper] wrote in the Montreal Gazette in the year before he came to power: ‘Information is the lifeblood of a democracy. Without adequate access to key information about government policies and...

We are a democracy — let’s have checks and balances. Let us have a government of checks and balances.

Multilate. Ha Ha Ha,’ said Nusswan, avuncular and willing to pretend it was a clever joke. ‘Its all relative. At the best of times, democracy is a see saw between complete chaos and tolerable confusion....

The terrible tyranny of the majority.

We are not educated well enough to perform the necessary act of intelligently selecting our leaders.

When those who are responsible for the leadership of State begin to move in villainous ways; when they begin to destroy the fabric of what it is that our nation is held together with; when...

I am a patriot. I have always sought to serve my country, in theory a Republic. Learning that secrecy was evil rather than good was my first step. From there it was a steady march...

Despite elections and the experience of post-Soviet personal freedoms by the Russian people, the fate of democracy in Russia is perhaps more ambiguous now than at any time since the collapse of the Communist system.

Society has three stages: Savagery, Ascendance, Decadence. The great rise because of Savagery. They rule in Ascendance. They fall because of their own Decadence.”He tells how the Persians were felled, how the Romans collapsed because...

I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run.

Our safety, our liberty, depends upon preserving the Constitution of the United States as our fathers made it inviolate. The people of the United States are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts,...

A democracy which makes or even effectively prepares for modern, scientific war must necessarily cease to be democratic. No country can be really well prepared for modern war unless it is governed by a tyrant,...

Equality may be a fiction but nonetheless one must accept it as a governing principle.

The Paris Commune was first and foremost a democracy. The government was a body elected by universal suffrage.

This is why we apply the LCD Principle or Lowest Common Democracy. In short, this is social interaction based not on the best possible good, but on the least possible offense. Without saying so, the...

We are not going to always agree with each other, but we should have the dignity to always respect each other’s freedom of speech and of choice. Democracy is practiced when we have respect for...

The idea of elections and democracy is important to Israel. The participation in elections of a terrorist group cannot benefit democracy.

If we expose the Chinese to our freedoms, it may create a greater hunger for democracy, reform and liberties in China.

And so, when the chips are down, I must say, though not without a sense of repugnance, that if you wish to show your belief in democracy, you also have to do so when you...

The Republican and Democratic parties both feed out of the same bag provided by the monied system, and where the list frequently differs the same interests are represented.

There has always been, and there is now, a profound conflict of interest between the people and the government of the United States.