2,003 Quotes About Democracy

A good education helps us make sense of the world and find our way in it

Authority is not a power, it is a responsibility.

The World Bank, anxious that the last vestiges of Zimbabwe's former inclination toward socialism be abandoned, successfully urged the imposition of a token tuition charge for all grade levels. Equivalent to one U. S. dollar per year per child, this fee constitutes a burden to the poorest families, who have responded by sending only boys to classes. Too many of the girls . . . have resorted to prostitution in order to eat.

A good leader leads with compassion and love, not fear and blood.

Teaching kids to filter facts from fiction should be a top priority in elementary education.

To conceive of an education as a commodity (as if it were a polo pony or an Armani suit) is to construe the idea of democracy as the freedom of a market instead of a freedom of the mind. I can understand why the mistake is both easy and convenient to make, but unless we stop telling ourselves that America is best understood as the sum of its gross domestic product, we stand little chance of re-imagining our history or reengineering our schools.

One of the problems with democracy is that there are historical moments when it is difficult to reconcile necessity and popularity.

Because great leaders are differentiated—that is to say, they are inherently unlike the common man, in that they surpass him in wisdom and virtue and boldness— democratic societies immediately run up against a conundrum: either they demand that these differentiated men pretend they are not what they are, that is to say, they demand hypocrisy; or else they drive these men out of their midst and choose "leaders" who are not leaders but are simple experts in mediocrity.

While the natural instincts of democracy persuade the people to remove distinguished men from power, the latter are guided by no less an instinct to distance themselves from a political career, where it is so difficult for them to retain their complete autonomy or to make any progress without cheapening themselves.