Democracy is indispensable, not because it renders superfluous the conquest of political power by the proletariat, but, on the contrary, because it makes this seizure of power both necessary and possible.

What is most important for democracy is not that great fortunes should not exist, but that great fortunes should not remain in the same hands. In that way there are rich men, but they do not form a class.

We asked voters who'd never voted before... who don't believe that their vote makes a difference, to turn out in races like mine, and they did. What they deserve back is a leader who puts democracy first.

Bipartisan democracy presupposes the individual, whose welfare is identical with that of the community in which he lives, the absence of coherent social classes, a basic uniformity of interest throughout.

For the newspaper is in all literalness the bible of democracy, the book out of which a people determines its conduct. It is the only serious book most people read. It is the only book they read every day.

Knowledge of the natural world and how it works should be counted as fundamental to informed governance. You can't have a functioning democracy, if the electorate is under-informed or, worse, mis-informed.

This dullness of vision regarding the importance of the general welfare to the individual is the measure of the failure of our schools and churches to teach the spiritual significance of genuine democracy.

Corporation: a miniature totalitarian state governed by a hierarchy of unelected officials who take a dim view of individualism, free speech, equality and eggheads. The backbone of all Western democracies.

People cannot be free unless they are willing to sacrifice some of their interests to guarantee the freedom of others. The price of democracy is the ongoing pursuit of the common good by all of the people.

The politics of the family are the politics of a nation. Just as the authoritarian family is the authoritarian state in microcosm, the democratic family is the best training ground for life in a democracy.

The problem with the West is that they start with political reform going towards democracy. If you want to go towards democracy, the first thing is to involve the people in decision making, not to make it.

Federal system is at the heart of Indian democracy but UPA is adamant to break the nation by breaking the federal structure for their vested interests. It's a conspiracy to grab power through the backdoor.

Well, I would say that we've got to redefine democracy, that we have been stuck in concepts of representative democracy, that we believe that it's getting other people to do things for us that we progress.

We have a complete respect for history, we respect the experiences of other countries and we have our own, but the truth is that if the Cuban revolution had not been a democracy it would not have survived.

The Arab Spring, nobody's in the streets demonstrating for radical Islam; they're in the streets with a window of democracy. They want our political reform, our social justice, and our economic opportunity.

There should be just no end to what we can do when we operate with the courage of our convictions and we get out there in the street, in the voting booth, we assert our power and we take our democracy back.

Gone is any mention of American exceptionalism. I happen to believe that twice, three times in the 20th century, the United States saved Western democracy, both World War - both World Wars and the Cold War.

Democracy is premised, in some measure, on majority rule, and democracy is difficult in a situation of concentrated inequalities in which a large, impoverished majority confronts a small, wealthy oligarchy.

Democracy is not compatible with capitalism but is congruent with a version of democratic socialism in which the wealth, resources, and benefits of a social order are shared in an equitable and just manner.

I intend to do what I can, working with my congressional colleagues, Republicans and Democrats, to help bring about the changes to the practices and Institutions of our democracy that they want and deserve.

Democracy is not merely a form of Government. It is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience. It is essentially an attitude of respect and reverence towards our fellow men.

And when we draw lines in the sand with regard to certain basic things that are vital to our interest and to the interest of democracy and our friends around the world, we have to be willing to back that up

We live in a democratic country, and I take great pride in saying that I'm from India, a country where democracy is worshipped and freedom of expression is part and parcel of any person's fundamental right.

The DA is the only party in South Africa that has grown in every national election and that trend must continue, and it must accelerate, because South Africa is in a race against time to save our democracy.

Tradition has to be retaken by the liberal forces, so that they can show their values of tolerance and democracy not as novel western ideas but as ones indigenous to Pakistan, as a part of its very creation.

The tank, the B-52, the fighter-bomber, the state-controlled police and military are the weapons of dictatorship. The rifle is the weapon of democracy. Not for nothing was the revolver called an "equalizer."

We live in an age of de-democratization. The number of democracies in the world has been going backwards since 2005, and even many existing democracies including in Europe have been becoming less democratic.

The rules of workplace democracy are founded in solidarity and mutual trust. They are at the core of a historic process which promises to introduce a new economy, and thereby a new society, after capitalism.

In democratic centuries, on the contrary, when the duties of each individual toward the species are much clearer, devotion toward one man becomes rarer: the bond of human affections is extended and loosened.

And when we draw lines in the sand with regard to certain basic things that are vital to our interest and to the interest of democracy and our friends around the world, we have to be willing to back that up.

Bush people didn't like him, and they never liked him. They didn't like him because they don't like democracy. They like you to have an election, but they like you to elect the people they want you to elect.

We so often tend to think our democracies are ruled by procedures and laws, but they are also governed by implicit rules and assumptions and one of them is the ability to feel shame - that you can be shamed.

The democracy which shows up in the United States and in England is not an ideal democracy, because the will of the people is under the pressure of property, which is in the hands of the wealthy capitalists.

American democracy is the inalienable right to sit on your front porch, in your pyjamas, drinking a can of beer and shouting out 'Where else is this possible?' Which doesn't seem to me to be freedom, really.

The advanced levels which the democratic world has attained at the end of lengthy processes may have created the perception in the region that democracy is a distant concept; this perception can be addressed

Nonetheless, we continue to be obsessed with finding or inventing a European nation which, as in the nation state, guarantees homogeneity and thus an appropriate form of democracy and centralized government.

We were told that we were attacked on 9/11 because the terrorists hate our freedoms and democracy ... not for the real reason: because the Arab Muslims who attacked us hate our Middle Eastern foreign policy.

Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around.

One of the most interesting reactions to come out of 1968 was in the first publication of the Trilateral Commission, which believed there was a 'crisis of democracy' from too much participation of the masses.

The right constitutions, three in number- kingship, aristocracy, and polity- and the deviations from these, likewise three in number - tyranny from kingship, oligarchy from aristocracy, democracy from polity.

The biggest lie of all is that capitalism is democracy. We have no way of understanding democracy outside of the market, just as we have no understanding of how to understand freedom outside of market values.

The biggest danger I feel are an emerging group of Westernised, educated, champagne socialists and latte liberals who pontificate about social inequality, democracy and freedom in the comfort of their condos.

What I've said is we're going to encourage democracy in Pakistan, expand our nonmilitary aid to Pakistan so that they have more of a stake in working with us, but insisting that they go after these militants.

The E.U. is more than just a trade organization or a common market; it is a guarantee of democracy, freedom, justice, and human rights. Nations cannot stay in the E.U. if they do not respect these guarantees.

Investment that only goes to enrich an already wealthy elite bent on monopolizing both economic and political power cannot contribute toward égalité and justice - the foundation stones for a sound democracy.

Complete equality isn't compatible with democracy, but it is a agreeable to tolitarianism. After all the only way to ensure the equality of the slothful, the inept and the immoral is to suppress everyone else.

It means that, in fact, it's - whether fascist is the right word I don't know - more of a plutocracy than anything resembling a democracy; it has become a nation controlled by a very small, very wealthy elite.

The surest way to lose democracy is to take it for granted. Every citizen must contribute to its advancement in some way. No nation or culture can long survive the absence of transcendent values and absolutes.

We want to lead by our values and out interests in ways that, regardless of the trajectory over the next decade, people will know the United States was on the side of democracy, on the side of the rule of law.

If you live in a democracy and don't have freedom of information, it's not a democracy. And people have to understand that if you don't have freedom of information online, it's not going to be offline, either.

Share This Page