Democracy Quotes

"Democracy is not the law of the majority but the protection of the minority."

"Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule – and both commonly succeed, and are right."

H. L. Mencken

"In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme."

"The most important political office is that of the private citizen."

Louis Brandeis

"Democracy must in essence mean the art and science of mobilizing the entire physical, economic and spiritual resources of all the various sections of the people in the service of the common good of all."

"Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people."

"Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated."

G. K. Chesterton

"Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary."

Reinhold Niebuhr

"We do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics is a man who minds his own business; we say that he has no business here at all."

Pericles

"Intolerance is itself a form of violence and an obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit."

"The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy."

Montesquieu

“In our New York, the power belongs to the people.”

“We can demand what we deserve, and together we have built a movement where everyday New Yorkers recognise themselves in our vision of democracy.”

“To every New Yorker in Kensington and Midwood and Hunts Point, know this: This city is your city, and this democracy is yours too.”

“It's not that we must convince people to believe in democracy as a notion or as a political aspiration; it's that we have to convince them of its resonance in their lives.”

“Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

“On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does.”

“There is no week nor day nor hour when tyranny may not enter upon this country, if the people lose their roughness and spirit of defiance.”

“The genius of the United States is not best or most in its executives or legislatures, nor in its ambassadors or authors or colleges, but always most in the common people.”

“It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union. And we formed it to secure the blessings of liberty to the whole people, women as well as men.”

“The objective I propose is quite simple to state: to foster the infrastructure of democracy, the system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities, which allows a people to choose their own way.”

“Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.”

“Democracy is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.”

“A people is more prudent, more stable, and of better judgement than a prince.”

“I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”