Famously Said Random quote

Topics/Government

Quotes about democracy

108 quotes from 83 people

Most readBy personPage 6 of 8

To have given each one of the million Negro free families a forty-acre freehold would have made a basis of real democracy in the United States that might easily have transformed the modern world.
W. E. B. Du Bois1868–1963Black Reconstruction in America (1935), p. 602
- Race
I’m not an American. I’m one of the 22 million black people who are the victims of Americanism. One of the 22 million black people who are the victims of democracy, nothing but disguised hypocrisy.
Malcolm X1925–1965Speech in Cleveland, Ohio (April 3, 1964)
- America
- Race
I’m struck by how laughter connects you with people. It’s almost impossible to maintain any kind of distance or any sense of social hierarchy when you’re just howling with laughter. Laughter is a force for democracy.
John Cleeseborn 1939From The Human Face, BBC Television (2001)
- Laughter
I believe that Facebook represents one of the gravest threats to democracies around the world, and I am amazed that we have allowed our freedoms to be taken away by technology companies’ greed for growth and revenues.
Maria Ressaborn 1963How to Stand Up to a Dictator (2022)
- Technology
We want to take a chance on more democracy.
Willy Brandt1913–1992Government policy statement to the Bundestag (28 October 1969)
The cure for the ills of Democracy is more Democracy.
Jane Addams1860–1935Democracy and Social Ethics (1902), ch. 1; cf. Al Smith
There is no one to talk to since Mahatma Gandhi died.
Vladimir Putinborn 1952Responding to a question “Former Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder called you a ‘pure democrat’. Do you consider yourself such?” June 4, 2007
- Politics
An open society is always in danger. It must constantly reaffirm its principles in order to survive.
George Sorosborn 1930Speech at the National Press Club (2004)
- Freedom
We must present democracy as a force holding within itself the seeds of unlimited progress by the human race.
George C. Marshall1880–1959Essentials to Peace (1953)
Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.
Edmund Burke1729–1797Speech to the Electors of Bristol (3 November 1774); reported in The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke (1899), vol. 2, p. 95
- Politics
What chiefly diverts the men of democracies from lofty ambition is not the scantiness of their fortunes, but the vehemence of the exertions they daily make to improve them.
Alexis de Tocqueville1805–1859Democracy in America, Volume II (1840), Book Three, Chapter XIX.
- Motivation & Goals
Democracy has to be judged not just by the institutions that formally exist but by the extent to which different voices from diverse sections of the people can actually be heard.
Amartya Senborn 1933The Idea of Justice (2009), p. xiii
It is my considered judgment that my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not.
Mike Penceborn 1959Official statement prior to engaging in his role in the counting of the votes of the Electoral College (6 January 2021)
- Voting
The fabric of democracy is always fragile everywhere because it depends on the will of citizens to protect it, and when they become scared, when it becomes dangerous for them to defend it, it can go very quickly.
Margaret Atwoodborn 1939The Progressive interview (2010)
I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.
Peter Thielborn 1967In an article published by Cato Unbound (April 13, 2009)
- Freedom