Quotes about democracy
108 quotes from 83 people
Friedrich Engels1820–1895Principles of Communism (1847)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 1871In every well-governed state, wealth is a sacred thing; in democracies it is the only sacred thing.
Anatole France1844–1924L’Île des Pingouins [Penguin Island] (1908), Book VI: Les Temps Modernes, Ch. II: PyrotThe most tyrannical dictatorships the world has known have existed under the aegis of parliaments.
Muammar Gaddafi1942–2011The Green Book (1975)England is a capitalist democracy. Germany is a socialist people’s state.
Joseph Goebbels1897–1945“Englands Schuld,” Illustrierter Beobachter, Sondernummer, p. 14. The article is not dated, but is from the early months of the war, likely late fall of 1939
Mikhail Gorbachev1931–2022Speech to the 27th Party Congress, Moscow (25 February 1986)Here, sir, the people govern; here they act by their immediate representatives.
Alexander Hamilton1757–1804Remarks at the New York ratifying convention (1788), in Elliot’s Debates, vol. 2, p. 348- Alexander Hamilton1757–1804Speech in New York, urging ratification of the U.S. Constitution (21 June 1788)
Yuval Noah Harariborn 1976Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011), Chapter 6: “Building Pyramids”
Rutherford B. Hayes1822–1893Diary (11 March 1888)The most dangerous enemy of truth and freedom amongst us is the compact majority
Deliberation and debate is the way you stir the soul of our democracy.
Jesse Jackson1941–2026Biography Civil Rights Activist, Minister, Journalist, Biography.com.
Robert H. Jackson1892–1954West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943), 319 U.S. 641
