2,003 Quotes About Democracy

The only way to ensure democracy functions correctly is to question its governance constantly. Fail to do so and you may awake to find yourself living in a police state.

Democracy today, especially in the English-speaking world, is a political system that specialises in positioning inadequate, unqualified and dubious types in leadership positions.

What is democracy? It is what it says, the rule of the people. It is as good as the people are, or as bad.

I’d watched the election of Barack Obama with them, in Harlem: the celebration had spilled out onto the streets and erupted into dancing, outdoor champagne-drinking, euphoria. This [the 1/21/17 Women's March on Washington, DC] was different. It was like laughter at a funeral—what else can you do but hold on to who you are and who you love? What can you do but try to stay sane and fight like hell for what life is all about?

A free world doesn't mean a civilized world, for freedom without responsibility leads to more chaos than lack of freedom does.

Social pressure is the fascism of the democracies. Fascism is the democracy of the ruthless. Social engineering is the opiate of romantic intellectuals.

The great gift of American democracy is freedom to think, act, and carry out our lives in a manner that imbues meaning not only to our own life but enhances other people’s lives through our everyday actions.

If political rights are necessary to set social rights in place, social rights are indispensable to make political rights 'real' and keep them in operation. The two rights need each other for their survival; that survival can only be their joint achievement.

What does it mean to call for a “democratic” solution if you don’t have a conflict-resolution mechanism in mind?I think it means that you have said the word “democracy,” so the audience is supposed to cheer. It’s not so much a propositional statement, as the equivalent of the “Applause” light that tells a studio audience when to clap.