2,003 Quotes About Democracy

People love to shout, “democracy for the people, by the people, of the people”, yet when it comes to actually practice this principle, their brain turns to dust and their vigor vanishes.

A nation with minimum laws will have maximum laughter.

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.

Under observation, we act less free, which means we effectively are less free.

Democracies do have written rules (constitutions) and referees (the courts). But these work best, and survive longest, in countries where written constitutions are reinforced by their own unwritten rules of the game. These rules or norms serve as the soft guardrails of democracy, preventing day-to-day political competition from devolving into a no-holds-barred conflict.

When a civil servant or politician acts out of self-interest, it's called corruption, but when a citizen does it, it's called public interest.

A corrupt nation is born not from corrupt politicians, but from corrupt citizens.

Government isn't ruining capitalism. Capitalism is ruining government. I think that's kind of obvious. If you take capitalism out of government you get simple public representation. If you take government out of capitalism, you get slavery. [quoting Adam Franz]

You know you have a transparency problem when citizens of a democracy need to rely on WikiLeaks for details on changes to laws.