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Quotes about democracy

108 quotes from 83 people

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There cannot be true democracy unless women’s voices are heard.
Hillary Clintonborn 1947Keynote Address at the Vital Voices Conference in Vienna, Austria (11 July 1997)
- Women
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. Mencken1880–1956Minority Report: H.L. Mencken’s Notebooks (1956)
Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself.
John Adams1735–1826XVIII, p. 484
There is no force so democratic as the force of an ideal.
Calvin Coolidge1872–1933
It’s not the voting that’s democracy; it’s the counting.
Tom Stoppard1937–2025Jumpers (1972), Act I
What is the most important for democracy is not that great fortunes should not exist, but that great fortunes should not remain in the same hands. In that way there are rich men, but they do not form a class.
Alexis de Tocqueville1805–1859
- Money
There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult⁠—to begin a war and to end it.
Alexis de Tocqueville1805–1859Democracy in America, Volume II (1840), Book Three, Chapter XXII.
- War & Peace
As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.
Abraham Lincoln1809–1865Definition of Democracy; see Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 2 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1953), p. 532
- Slavery
The genius of democracies is seen not only in the great number of new words introduced but even more in the new ideas they express.
Alexis de Tocqueville1805–1859Democracy in America, Volume II (1840), Book One, Chapter XVI.
- Ideas
A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.
Alexis de Tocqueville1805–1859Democracy in America, Volume I (1835), Chapter XIII.
- Economics
Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.
Alexis de Tocqueville1805–185912 September 1848, “Discours prononcé à l’assemblée constituante le 12 Septembre 1848 sur la question du droit au travail”, Oeuvres complètes, vol. IX, p. 546
The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.
Alexis de Tocqueville1805–1859
The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of bourgeois stupidity.
Gustave Flaubert1821–1880Letters to George Sand, 4 or 5 October 1871
The people’s government, made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people.
Daniel Webster1782–1852Second Reply to Hayne (1830)
- Government
Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.
Reinhold Niebuhr1892–1971The Children of Light and The Children of Darkness (1944)
- Justice