Democracy Quotes

There is no state with a democracy except Libya on the whole planet.

No party has a monopoly on wisdom. No democracy works without compromise. But when Governor Romney and his allies in Congress tell us we can somehow lower our deficit by spending trillions more on new tax breaks for the wealthy - well, you do the math. I refuse to go along with that. And as long as I'm President, I never will.

I have great confidence in Taiwan's democracy.

Democracy is not something that happens, you know, just at election time, and it's not something that happens just with one event. It's an ongoing building process. But it also ought to be a part of our culture, a part of our lives.

Dishonesty in government is the business of every citizen. It is not enough to do your own job. There's no particular virtue in that. Democracy isn't a gift. It's a responsibility.

We need to thank all of our troops, and particularly those for whom we can never express enough gratitude for they have given their lives so that all of us may be free and that our democracy can be a shining light for the rest of the world.

Ukraine is also successfully moving toward democracy and making progress expanding freedoms and rights to its people. We can help Ukraine achieve these goals and improve its economy by normalizing trade relations.

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

Our democracy poses problems and these problems must and shall be solved by courageous leadership.

I have absolutely no idea what my generation did to enrich our democracy. We dropped the ball. We entered a period of complacency and closed our eyes to the public corruption of our democracy.

At a time when 2500 American soldiers have given their lives for the cause of bringing democracy to Iraq, it is sad and frustrating to watch the Republican establishment disgrace the exercise of democracy in our own House of Representatives.

Maintain democracy or go to dictatorship: that is what is at stake in these elections.

Democracy is now going forth on a crusade against imperialism.

Be assured, fellow citizens, that in a democracy it is the laws that guard the person of the citizen and the constitution of the state, whereas the despot and the oligarch find their protection in suspicion and in armed guards.

Politicians, no matter who they are, shouldn't be able to manipulate the public on a single issue and then call an election at the height of support - that's a little bit of a manipulation of democracy.

Candor and accountability in a democracy is very important. Hypocrisy has no place.

I say that democracy can never prove itself beyond cavil, until it founds and luxuriantly grows its own forms of art, poems, schools, theology, displacing all that exists, or that has been produced anywhere in the past, under opposite influences.

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

China has to go along with world trends. That's democracy, liberty, individual freedom. China sooner or later has to go that way. It cannot go backward.

The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness which the ambitious call, and the ignorant believe to be liberty.

Freedom of expression - in particular, freedom of the press - guarantees popular participation in the decisions and actions of government, and popular participation is the essence of our democracy.

It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it; consequently, the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning.

I think that it's a vital moment now for Russian democracy to convince people that it's only our actions, our joined actions and protests that could force Kremlin to reconsider its plans to abolish presidential elections.

More socialism means more democracy, openness and collectivism in everyday life.

The essence of a democracy is a free electorate.

The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.

A central claim of the Bush administration's foreign policy is that the spread of democracy in the Middle East is the cure for terrorism.

What should be targeted is a concept of organic, and not just mechanic, democracy that preserves the rule of law, separation of powers, and that is participatory and pluralistic.

Reading and writing, like everything else, improve with practice. And, of course, if there are no young readers and writers, there will shortly be no older ones. Literacy will be dead, and democracy - which many believe goes hand in hand with it - will be dead as well.

Similarly, it is argued that the culture of Islam is incompatible with democracy. Basically, this conventional perspective of the Middle East thus contends that democracy in that region is neither possible nor even desirable.