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democracy quotes

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“Every citizen, it is said, must have equality, and therefore in a democracy the poor have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme.” Aristotle, Politics
“And so tyranny naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme form of liberty?” Plato, The Republic
“Full steam — Knowledge — Zzzzzp! Money — Zzzzzzp! — Power! That’s the cycle democracy is built on!” Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie
“To safeguard democracy the people must have a keen sense of independence, self-respect and their oneness, and should insist upon choosing as their representatives only such persons as are good and true.” Mahatma Gandhi, The Story of my Experiments with Truth
“The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy.” Woodrow Wilson, The New Freedom
“He who is a citizen in a democracy will often not be a citizen in an oligarchy.” Aristotle, Politics
“The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual.” Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience
“As soon as any man says of the affairs of the State 'What does it matter to me?' the State may be given up for lost.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract
“Tyranny, as I was saying, is monarchy exercising the rule of a master over the political society; oligarchy is when men of property have the government in their hands; democracy, the opposite, when the indigent, and not the men of property, are...” Aristotle, Politics
“Democracy, for example, arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.” Aristotle, Politics
“A State for one man is no State at all.” Sophocles, Antigone
“It was not lack of ability that limited my people, but lack of opportunity.” Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
“A democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience.” John Dewey, Democracy and Education
“A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.” Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt; an Autobiography
“Were there a people of gods, their government would be democratic. So perfect a government is not for men.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract
“The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the trusted foundations of political liberty.” Woodrow Wilson, We Must Accept War
“There was something called democracy. As though men were more than physico-chemically equal.” Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
“Jealousy is a virtue of democracies which preserves them from tyrants.” Anatole France, Penguin Island
“Democratic institutions generally give men a lofty notion of their country and of themselves.” Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
“We want the will of the people, not the votes of the people; and to give a man a vote against his will is to make voting more valuable than the democracy it declares.” G. K. Chesterton, What's Wrong with the World
“Our political experiment of democracy, the last refuge of cheap misgovernment, will ruin us if our citizens are ill bred.” George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman
“VOTE, n. The instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.” Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
“It runs as follows: The State is made for man, not man for the State.” Albert Einstein, The world as I see it
“We should be men first, and subjects afterward.” Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience
“This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit...” Martin Luther King, Jr., I have a Dream
“Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our father.” G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
“One of the fundamental problems of education in and for a democratic society is set by the conflict of a nationalistic and a wider social aim.” John Dewey, Democracy and Education
“Oh, God, the terrible tyranny of the majority.” Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
“In every ordered State, wealth is a sacred thing: in democracies it is the only sacred thing.” Anatole France, Penguin Island
“In place of the King’s arbitrary despotism they proposed, not the withering anarchy of feudal separatism, but a system of checks and balances which would accord the monarchy its necessary strength, but would prevent its perversion by a tyrant...” Winston Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples
“Nothing is more necessary to the culture of the higher sciences, or of the more elevated departments of science, than meditation; and nothing is less suited to meditation than the structure of democratic society.” Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
“For if liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost.” Aristotle, Politics
“No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country.” Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
“To play the demagogue for purposes of self-interest is a cardinal sin against the people in a democracy, exactly as to play the courtier for such purposes is a cardinal sin against the people under other forms of government.” Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt; an Autobiography
“Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.” Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience
“All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and the shortest means to accomplish it.” Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
“In our society, those who have the best knowledge of what is happening are also those who are furthest from seeing the world as it is.” George Orwell, 1984
“The tax which each individual is bound to pay, ought to be certain and not arbitrary.” Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations
“There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult—to begin a war, and to end it.” Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
“If I preached unity, I must act like a unifier, even at the risk of perhaps alienating some of my own colleagues.” Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom

Related topics

tyranny power vote citizenship freedom liberty government state respect peace equality war will men majority slavery politics individualism independence justice

Related authors

Winston Churchill (1)
Aristotle (5)
Alexis de Tocqueville (5)
Henry David Thoreau (3)
Theodore Roosevelt (2)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (2)
Nelson Mandela (2)
G. K. Chesterton (2)
Woodrow Wilson (2)
John Dewey (2)
Anatole France (2)
George Orwell (1)
Plato (1)
Mahatma Gandhi (1)
Albert Einstein (1)
Sophocles (1)
Ambrose Bierce (1)
George Bernard Shaw (1)
Aldous Huxley (1)
Ray Bradbury (1)

Related sources

Democracy in America (5)
Politics (5)
I have a Dream (1)
Civil Disobedience (3)
Long Walk to Freedom (2)
The Social Contract (2)
Democracy and Education (2)
Theodore Roosevelt; an Autobiography (2)
Penguin Island (2)
The Story of my Experiments with Truth (1)
The Glass Menagerie (1)
The Republic (1)
1984 (1)
The world as I see it (1)
Antigone (1)
The New Freedom (1)
The Wealth of Nations (1)
Brave New World (1)
Man and Superman (1)
Fahrenheit 451 (1)