The story of the American Civil War is essentially one of human beings––Northerners, Southerners, Blacks, Whites, men, women–– holding themselves accountable for the future of a nation.

Authority is not a power, it is a responsibility.

When did a free country start to mean free enterprise? Who sold Democracy out for a golden calf we got to idolize?

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.

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

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....

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...

It was an idea that made the crucial difference between British and Iberian America – an idea about the way people should govern themselves. Some people make the mistake of calling that idea ‘democracy’ and...

The hushing of the criticism of honest opponents is a dangerous thing. It leads some of the best of the critics to unfortunate silence and paralysis of effort, and others to burst into speech so...

We do not get to vote on who owns what, or on relations in factory and so on, for all this is deemed beyond the sphere of the political, and it is illusory to expect...

As long as enough people can be frightened, then all people can be ruled. I am afraid that’s how it works in a democracy.

Sometimes it’s better to have a benign dictator than a dumb democracy, to be honest.

Open Everything’ is everything–it is our mind, our heart, our soul, our destiny.

In a republican nation, whose citizens are to be led by reason and persuasion and not by force, the art of reasoning becomes of first importance

It was not man who implanted in himself what is infinite and the love of what is immortal: those lofty instincts are not the offspring of his capricious will; their steadfast foundation is fixed in...

Elections belong to the people. It’s their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.

Stand here, he thought, and count the lighted windows of a city. You cannot do it. But behind each yellow rectangle that climbs, one over another, to the sky – under each bulb – down...

Democracies should be a delirium of choices – more options, not fewer; more avenues to travel, not fewer.

Democracy: stored up in heaven; but unhappily has not yet been communicated to us.

The rich run a global system that allows them to accumulate capital and pay the lowest possible price for labour. The freedom that results applies only to them. The many simply have to work harder,...

The youth of Nepal have awakened in great numbers, we will continue our battle on the streets against monarchy. It’s democracy that we strive for; victory no matter what. So support our movement.

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by...

Accountability is the essence of democracy. If people do not know what their government is doing, they cannot be truly self-governing. The national security state assumes the government secrets are too important to be shared,...

Anything that helps enhance democracy to give average people a voice is a noble and good use of technology.

Youths are our arrows to the future.

Darwin did not know what a bitter satire he wrote on mankind … when he showed that free competition, the struggle for existence, which the economists celebrate as the highest historical achievement, is the normal...

Democracy, like any non-coercive relationship, rests on a shared understanding of limits

The US exports democracy, hence there being very little left for Americans

Democracy is a con game. It’s a word invented to placate people to make them accept a given institution. All institutions sing, ‘We are free.’ The minute you hear ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’, watch out… because...

The people who lead us are of us. We put them in office and we can take them out. America proves that the people can govern themselves.

The better the information it has, the better democracy works. Silence and secrecy are never good for it.

We grew up under dictatorship, wanted democracy and were quickly given responsibility. That sharpens the view for risks, but also for chances.

In its current form, globalization cannot be sustained. Democratic societies will not support it. Authoritarian leaders will fear to impose it.

When majority is insane, sane must go to asylum.

[Rumsfeld said he does not] known much about … But he is no friend of democracy. He’s no friend of freedom. He is a person who is very much supportive of the current ayatollahs, who...

You get fifteen Democrats in a room, and you get twenty opinions

Spain and the United States share the same values of democracy, liberty and fundamental freedoms.

What is at stake is not the provincial council elections, but democracy.

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,...

Just as war is too important to leave it to the generals, science and technology are too important to leave in the hands of the experts.

I realize that what happened in Bosnia could happen anywhere in the world, particularly in places that are diverse and have a history of conflict. It only takes bad leadership for a country to go...

Mrs. Cole was a perfect democrat. She hated all kids equally.

Kennedy echoed Stanley Baldwin that a democracy is always two years behind a dictator.

Without Revolutionary theory, there can be no Revolutionary Movement.

Egypt was the first democracy in the Middle East. Women were unveiled in the 1920s. Egypt is a country of civilization, of culture. It shouldn’t be suffering.

Whether democracy or aristocracy is the better form of government constitutes a very difficult question. But, clearly, democracy inconveniences one person while aristocracy oppresses another. That is a truth which establishes itself and precludes any...

Islam and democracy can function together.