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.

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. Hates, an obscure Ohio politician described by a contemporary journalist as “a third rate nonentity.” But the firm and its...

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 their knowledge of parliamentary systems, parliamentary manners. They were big debaters. They [had], as it were, a long apprenticeship in...

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

civic demobilization,” conditioning an electorate to being aroused for a brief spell, controlling its attention span, and then encouraging distraction or apathy. The intense pace of work and the extended working day, combined with job insecurity, is a formula for political demobilization, for privatizing the citizenry. It works indirectly. Citizens are encouraged to distrust their...

Greens all over the globe will need to develop the facilities of democracy for voters, workers, consumers, small taxpayers and the environment so that all people may participate in power to advance justice, peace and the pursuit of happiness.

Kami antarsaudara terpaksa saling bunuh hanya karena kekuasaan. Itulah yang nyaris terjadi di setiap negara. Demokrasi yang sekarang menggejala, apakah benar akan mengantarkan manusia pada kesadaran untuk berhenti saling membunuh? Tidak juga. Di negeri seberang, di mana kudengar demokrasi diberikan begitu leluasa, malah kejahatan, pembunuhan, pemerkosaan terhadap perempuan, saling fitnah, saling rebut kekuasaan hampir terjadi...

The very principle of democracy is founded on the possibility of making alternative choices. There is no longer a need for democracy, since ideology made the idea that “there is no alternative” acceptable. Adherence to a meta-social principle of superior rationality allows for the elimination of the necessity and possibility of choosing. The so-called principle...

Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.

Whether the mask is labeled fascism, democracy, or dictatorship of the proletariat, our great adversary remains the apparatus—the bureaucracy, the police, the military. Not the one facing us across the frontier of the battle lines, which is not so much our enemy as our brothers’ enemy, but the one that calls itself our protector and...

There are ways to pursue political change. In a democracy, it’s through the ballot box. There are other ways, and many democracies have many different systems of democracy.

Is America truly a democracy? Has America ever been a democracy with the institution of slavery?

Chile has done a lot to rid itself of poverty, especially extreme poverty, since the return to democracy. But we still have a ways to go toward greater equity. This country does not have a neoliberal economic model anymore. We have put in place a lot of policies that will ensure that economic growth goes...

The absolute value of being neutral is zero.

Now we must ensure a free and fair election. This is a big victory for democracy.

He is very idealistic. He has many convictions. He is very pro-democracy, very compassionate, always helping out others, he’s very driven. Those are more characteristics of Farris than adventurous. This is the first adventure he’s been on.

I think that the future belongs to democracy, but not to capitalism, because they are opposite camps.

[A]s long as individuals are compelled to rent themselves on the market to those who are willing to hire them, as long as their role in production is simply that of ancillary tools, then there are striking elements of coercion and oppression that make talk of democracy very limited, if meaningful.

The protesters have called into question whether there is a real democracy. Real democracy is more than the right to vote once every two or four years. The choices have to be meaningful. But increasingly, and especially in the US, it seems that the political system is more akin to “one dollar one vote” than...

I have long been convinced that institutions purely democratic must, sooner or later, destroy liberty, or civilization, or both

Senegal needs to free itself, to rediscover its democracy.

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.

But collective thinking is usually short-lived. We’re fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction.

Without an educated populace, democracy cannot sustain itself.

Vimes had once discussed the Ephebian idea of ‘democracy’ with Carrot, and had been rather interested in the idea that everyone had a vote until he found out that while he, Vimes, would have a vote, there was no way in the rules that anyone could prevent Nobby Nobbs from having one as well. Vimes...

In a society in which nearly everybody is dominated by somebody else’s mind or by a disembodied mind, it becomes increasingly difficult to learn the truth about the activities of governments and corporations, about the quality or value of products, or about the health of one’s own place and economy.In such a society, also, our...

People use democracy as a free-floating abstraction disconnected from reality. Democracy in and of itself is not necessarily good. Gang rape, after all, is democracy in action.All men have the right to live their own life. Democracy must be rooted in a rational philosophy that first and foremost recognizes the right of an individual. A...

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.

We like to stress the commonness of heroes. Essences seem undemocratic. We feel oppressed by the call to greatness. We regard an interest in glory or perfection as a sign of mental unhealthiness, and have decided that high achievers, who are called overachievers, owe their surplus ambition to a defect in mothering (either too little...

What would have become of the people five hundred years ago if they had followed strictly the advice of the doctors? They would have all been dead. What would the people have been, if at any age of the world they had followed implicitly the direction of the church? They would have all been idiots....

We know of the nature of the regime in Syria. We constantly try to inspire them toward more democracy, but playing with Syria would be dangerous and could prove to be a worse situation than Iraq.

Today women have the rights and equality our Victorian sisters could only dream of, and with those privileges comes the responsibility of standing up and being counted.

New technologies and resources offer exciting opportunities. They democratise access to information.

Throughout our history, brave men and women have answered the call to defend and protect our democracy.

It is a step forward toward ensuring Palestinian democracy in all the Palestinian territories which were occupied by Israel in 1967.

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 toward open-source everything. Now I see all the evil that secrecy enables in a corrupt Congress, a corrupt Executive, a...

There is nothing wrong with the United States–or the world at large–that cannot be stabilized and reconstructed by restoring the intelligence and integrity of all our organizations across the eight communities (academic, civil society, commerce, government, law enforcement, media, military, non-governmental/non-profit).

No one wants to be poor. In my view, and the view of many authors who have focused on poverty and practical solutions to it, we need to move beyond the industrial-era paradigm of giving them fish, or even the information-era paradigm of teaching them how to fish, and instead move closer to the cosmic...

I am personally optimistic. I share the widespread view that we are entering a new epoch during which we can achieve conscious evolution and the elevation of humanity to a constructive steward of the Earth.

I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

The march of freedom and democracy . . . will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people.

Every culture has its distinctive and normal system of government. Yours is democracy, moderated by corruption. Ours is totalitarianism, moderated by assassination.

Ehren wir die Freiheit. Arbeiten wir für den Frieden. Halten wir uns an das Recht. Dienen wir unseren inneren Maßstäben der Gerechtigkeit.”[Ansprache am 8. Mai 1985 in der Gedenkstunde im Plenarsaal des Deutschen Bundestages]

Democracy will be a reality when people will be rightly heard and valued. When in all policy making, in all big or small works, when state and government institutions will be accountable to people by keeping people in focus all the time who represented their power and empowered them. Democracy will be a reality when...

Activism begins with you, Democracy begins with you, get out there, get active! Tag, you’re it

We expected that with electoral democracy there would be a trickle down of positive effects. That did not happen.

Privacy, self-reliance, choice — all these can and must remina core American values. Yet so too must we remember that other core American value, the value of community. And we must redefine community more broadly to include not just our street or our tract, but our town, our metropolis, our region.

A great democracy has got to be progressive or it will soon cease to be great or a democracy.

[D]emocracy can itself be as tyrannical as a dictatorship, since it is the extent, not the source, of government power that impinges on freedom.”-William F Buckley

You know you have a transparency problem when citizens of a democracy need to rely on WikiLeaks for details on changes to laws.