Democracy Quotes
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Democracy is to have different ideas, even extreme ones. In democracy there is space for all of them and bridges to connect them. In Turkey we are losing those bridges, and everyone is trying to destroy spaces for the opposite side. When we look at this, Istanbul is like different courtyards divided by big, thick walls.
Burhan Sonmez
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Well the protester I think is a very powerful thing. It's basically a mechanism of democracy that, along with capitalism, scientific innovation, those things have built the modern world. And it's wonderful that the new tools have empowered that protestor so that state secrets, bad developments are not hidden anymore.
Bill Gates
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I consider anybody a twerp who hasn't read 'Democracy in America' by Alexis de Tocqueville. There can never be a better book than that one on the strengths and vulnerabilities inherent in our form of government.
Kurt Vonnegut
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Democracy is not a Beloved Republic really, and never will be. But it is less hateful than other contemporary forms of government, and to that extent deserves our support.
E. M. Forster
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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.
Barack Obama
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Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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Democracy does not have to be a bloodsport, it can be an honorable enterprise that advances the public interest.
Bill Clinton
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Certainly, if we believe in democracy and democratic systems, when Benazir Bhutto failed to pass any legislation, really, at all in her first two years in government during her first term and in fact had a tenure that was marked not only by gross corruption but by human rights abuses, that should have been a time for people to say, "Well, OK, we've given you an opportunity and you haven't bettered the institutions, you haven't strengthened the democratic cause - we may not vote you back."
Fatima Bhutto
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Indeed, when all parties campaign effectively the overall effect is to push up voting rates, as you see in tight marginal seats or close general elections. That must be good for democracy.
Lucy Powell
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Since 1990, we have been building up the idea that democracy is the best way for sectors that feel socially excluded from politics to win power.
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
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Equality before the law in a true democracy is a matter of right. It cannot be a matter of charity or of favor or of grace or of discretion.
Wiley Blount Rutledge
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Democracy is extremely complex; it is extremely concrete. It's about constantly choosing, finding, developing practical options within the common good. Constantly searching for how to express in a practical way the common good, not in some grand way, some grand and absolute way, but in a very comfortable way.
John Ralston Saul
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If democracy is to be rebuilt … it is necessary not just for the public to learn to trust their politicians, but for the politicians to learn to trust the public.
Rory Stewart
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President Obama has said that our aspirations should be realistic. We are not going to turn one of the poorest countries in the world, that was plunged into 30 years of war, into an advanced, industrialized, Western-style democracy. What we want to achieve is Afghanistan's capacity to secure and govern itself.
David Petraeus
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They are not, and almost everybody accepts this, entitled to engage in seeking to disrupt the way our democracy operates by violence or threats of violence.
Jack Straw
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Democracy is more than a ballot box.
Mohamed ElBaradei
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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.
Virgil Goode
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What passes for patriotism is now largely measured by the flag pins in our lapels and the mouthing of pride and faith in our soldiers, sailors, and aviators. Having long since lost track of the precepts of American democracy, we've devolved into a cult of military, with its own blind faith and liturgy...
Bob Garfield
