Democracy Quotes
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Jesus would not be crucified today. The prophets would not be stoned. Socrates would not drink the hemlock. They would instead be banned from the Sunday talk shows and op-ed pages by the sentries of establishment thinking who guard against dissent with the one weapon of mass destruction most cleverly designed to obliterate democracy: the rubber stamp.
Bill Moyers
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I have talked to more people who are in politics who have said to me, "[House of Cards] is closer than you can imagine. It's the most accurate description of how politics actually works that we've ever seen." I mean, West Wing - beautiful, wonderful idea of how democracy should work. But I've had more people in politics say they think House of Cards is closer. I - don't know whether to take that as a compliment or a sad state of affairs.
Kevin Spacey
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I'd rather have the influence than the power, and the influence to me is to build institutions of independence and democracy, to regain for Egypt prestige in education and science and technology.
Ahmed Zewail
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We are a constitutional democracy. We must deal with things properly within the framework of the law and then the constitution.
Jacob Zuma
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It is bad because it is a negation of democracy … Worst of all is the imposition by parliamentary diktat of a change of responsible party in London government. There cannot be any justification for that. It immediately lays the Conservative Party open to the charge of the greatest gerrymandering in the last 150 years of British history.
Edward Heath
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Democracy, taken in its narrower, purely political, sense, suffers from the fact that those in economic and political power possess the means for molding public opinion to serve their own class interests. The democratic form of government in itself does not automatically solve problems; it offers, however, a useful framework for their solution. Everything depends ultimately on the political and moral qualities of the citizenry.
Albert Einstein
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Democracy in Iraq will be an example that the Arab population will look to with great interest. And some Arab governments are concerned about democracy in Iraq, not because Iraq will be an aggressive state against them, but rather by the example that will be set by a successful federal democratic state in Iraq.
Ahmed Chalabi
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Public education is a great instrument of social change. Through it, if we so desire, we can make our country more nearly a democracy without classes. To do so will require the efforts of us all-teachers, administrators, taxpayers and statesmen. Education is a social process, perhaps the most important process in determining the future of our country; it should command a far larger portion of our national income than it does today.
James Bryant Conant
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The concept of democracy is a fucking joke. Rock’s supposed to shake things up and say, ‘Fuck that, this is shit, man! Let’s burn down the Houses of Parliament!’
Matt Bellamy
Muse
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A true democracy starts by separating state and bad science.
Jens Martin Skibsted
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We don't want peace over freedom. We will choose freedom over peace. We will go on with our fight for self-determination and democracy. But if things continue the way they are, I expect the situation to become more violent.
Zainab al-Khawaja
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What is wanted to save parliamentary democracy is an opposition that will operate not privately and behind the closed doors of the party meeting, but openly and periodically through the electorate.
C. Rajagopalachari
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When a song is written, depending on who wrote what, the percentage split between the writers and performers must be agreed. In a democracy, e.g. New Order, it was all split into quarters, 25 per cent each, and the same for the performance royalties. This stayed the same up until Republic, when Barney decided he wanted more, and truth be told, he deserved it. He was doing two jobs.
Peter Hook
New Order
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I found a correlation between the spreading of democracy after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise in slavery. Now, as countries, former Communist countries, became so-called democratic, people started to be enslaved by their own countrymen.
Loretta Napoleoni
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A lot of young poets today, from what I've heard and experienced, can't get their heads past George W. Bush, and I've heard so many poems about this democracy and this era of politics that I'm kind of bored by it.
Amber Tamblyn
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Corruption and hypocrisy ought not to be inevitable products of democracy, as they undoubtedly are today.
Mahatma Gandhi
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Our sages in the great constitutional convention... intended our government should be a republic which differs more widely from a democracy than a democracy from a despotism. The rigours of a despotism often... oppress only a few, but it is the very essence and nature of a democracy, for a faction claiming to oppress a minority, and that minority the chief owners of the property and truest lovers of their country.
Fisher Ames
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The President of a great democracy such as ours, and the editors of great newspapers such as yours, owe a common obligation to the people: an obligation to present the facts, to present them with candor, and to present them in perspective.
John F. Kennedy
