Unlike exotic fruit or fancy cars, democracy is best if it is grown locally. It may take root in the common desire of the people who choose to adopt it, but it cannot be imposed...

Change represents the real spirit of democracy and the real America.

Our mission is not to impose our peculiar institutions upon other nations by physical force or diplomatic treachery but rather by internal peace and prosperity to solve the problem of self-government and reconcile democratic freedom...

After each war there is a little less democracy to save.

When it comes down to it, government is simply an abandonment of responsibility on the assumption that there are people, other than ourselves, who really know how to manage things. But the government, run ostensibly...

One less desirable aspect of democracy is that it seems to require serious demonization of the enemy if the nation and public opinion are to be galvanized sufficiently to pay a serious price in blood...

The main problem in any democracy is that crowd-pleasers are generally brainless swine who can go out on a stage & whup their supporters into an orgiastic frenzy—then go back to the office & sell...

For a quarter-century British governments had tried and failed to combine economic growth, increased social service provision and a high level of employment. The second depended ultimately on the first, but when difficulty arose, the...

This is the worst thing that can happen in a democracy, and I’m saying that against the Liberal Party,

The majority is never right. Never, I tell you! That’s one of these lies in society that no free and intelligent man can help rebelling against. Who are the people that make up the biggest...

In theory at any rate each militia was a democracy and not a hierarchy . It was understood that orders had to be obeyed, but it was also understood that when you gave an order...

This is supposed to be a participatory democracy and if we’re not in there participating then the people that will manipulate and exploit the system will step in there.

Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it.

We can’t have democracy if we’re having to protect you and our users from the government over stuff we’ve never had a conversation about. We need to know what the parameters are, what kind of...

technologies come and go. Economic structures evolve and change. Society adjusts. But democratic basics persist in spite of the Tofflers, Gingrich and the chorus of corporate voices.(III – From Corporatism to Democracy)

A desire for privacy does not imply shameful secrets; Moglen argues, again and again, that without anonymity in discourse, free speech is impossible, and hence also democracy. The right to speak the truth to power...

The vast majority of administrators, at all times and in all societies, are prone to commit grievous errors if left entirely to their own devices. Hence, they should not be left to their own devices,...

Remember something, if you will, about voting: Voting is not a horse race, you’re not going there thinking “Gee, I gotta pick the winner so I can brag to my friends ‘Oh, I picked so-and-so...

We have accepted the principle of democracy and we are committed to respect the popular verdict and the result of that national consultation.

The World Bank, anxious that the last vestiges of Zimbabwe’s former inclination toward socialism be abandoned, successfully urged the imposition of a token tuition charge for all grade levels. Equivalent to one U. S. dollar...

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.

So long as we have enough people in this country willing to fight for their rights, we’ll be called a democracy.

The absolute value of being neutral is zero.

It is only when women start to organize in large numbers that we become a political force, and begin to move towards the possibility of a truly democratic society in which every human being can...

He didn’t ask “Where will you spend eternity?” as religious the-end-is-near picketers did but rather, “With what, in this modern democracy, will you meet the demands of your soul?

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...

Had history been democratic in its ways, there would have been no farming and no industrial revolution. Both leaps into the future were occasioned by unbearably painful crises that made most people wish they could...

I believe in the fireside. I believe in the democracy of home. I believe in the republicanism of the family. I believe in liberty, equality and love.

Being an absolute ruler today was not as simple as people thought. At least, it was not simple if your ambitions included being an absolute ruler tomorrow. There were subtleties. Oh, you could order men...

It is extremely difficult to obtain a hearing from men living in democracies, unless it be to speak to them of themselves. They do not attend to the things said to them, because they are...

The ballot is stronger than the bullet.

Democracy is, among other things, the ability to say ‘no’ to the boss. But a man cannot say ‘no’ to the boss, unless he is sure of being able to eat when the boss’s favour...

Democracy! Bah! When I hear that I reach for my feather boa!

Democracy is constructed like an edifice, freedom by freedom, right by right, until it reaches its snapping point.

Long before it was known to me as a place where my ancestry was even remotely involved, the idea of a state for Jews (or a Jewish state; not quite the same thing, as I...

I have an unshaken conviction that democracy can never be undermined if we maintain our library resources and a national intelligence capable of utilizing them.”[Letter to Herbert Putnam; in: Waters, Edward N.: Herbert Putnam: the...

The right of dissent, or, if you prefer, the right to be wrong, is surely fundamental to the existence of a democratic society. That’s the right that went first in every nation that stumbled down...

They will talk about issues concerning the continued march of democracy in Europe and also in Russia,

but everybody had reservations. This is part of democracy. If the people do not approve it, we will draft another constitution.

Democratic ideas cannot exist without the public spheres that make them possible.

In too many countries, leaders speak of democracy, yet rig elections, suppress dissent, and shackle the press.

Democracy is the name we give the people whenever we need them.

featuring a more developed economy, improved democracy, advanced science and education … and higher living standards for the entire 1.3 billion people.

Even if Zuma was to develop the authoritarian impulses of a Mugabe, he would be checked—not least by his own party, which set a continental precedent by ousting Thabo Mbeki in 2007, after it felt...

Do you know that one of the great problems of our age is that we are governed by people who care more about feelings than they do about thoughts and ideas.

Wir können in diesem Land entweder eine Demokratie haben oder wir können großen Wohlstand haben, der in den Händen weniger konzentriert liegt, aber wir können nicht beides haben.

Librarians consider free access to information the foundation of democracy.

The health of democracy, not its hate, is its best propaganda.

Fundamentalists are not friends of democracy. And that includes your fundamentalists in the United States.

The idea that each corporation can be a feudal monarchy and yet behave in its corporate action like a democratic citizen concerned for the world we live in is one of the great absurdities of...