In a democracy the people choose a leader in whom they trust. Then the chosen leader says, 'Now shut up and obey me.' People and party are then no longer free to interfere in his business. — Max Weber
If the institutions of parliamentary democracy are worth preserving, the duty to explain them to the people they are meant to serve becomes vitally important. — John Allen Fraser
We're not perfect, but we do have democracy. — Hugo Chavez
Our Parliamentary system has simply failed to meet the challenge of judicial activism. — Stockwell Day
A Parliament is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people. — Walter Bagehot
Democracy is not the law of the majority but the protection of the minority. — Albert Camus
The essence of a democracy is a free electorate. — Arlen Specter
The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them in parliament. — Vladimir Lenin
Democracy is the form of government in which the free are rulers. — Aristotle
Liberal constitutional democracy is supposed to ensure that each citizen is free and equal and protected by basic rights and liberties. — John Rawls
Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. — George Bernard Shaw
Democracy is "government of, by and for the people". — Abraham Lincoln
Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates. — Gore Vidal
Parliamentary Government Quotes
Mozart, Pascal, Boolean algebra, Shakespeare, parliamentary government, baroque churches, Newton, the emancipation of women, Kant, Balanchine ballets, et al. don’t redeem what this particular civilization has wrought upon the world. The white race is the cancer of human history. — Susan Sontag
We believed that growth through Local Government, and perhaps through some special machinery for bringing the wishes and influence of women of all classes to bear on Parliament, other than the Parliamentary vote, was the real line of progress. — Mary Augusta Ward
Dullness in matters of government is a good sign, and not a bad one - in particular, dullness in parliamentary government is a test of its excellence, an indication of its success. — Walter Bagehot
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.
The stations of uncensored expression are closing down; the lights are going out; but there is still time for those to whom freedom and parliamentary government mean something, to consult together. Let me, then, speak in truth and earnestness while time remains. — Winston Churchill
Whatever failures may have come to parliamentary government in countries which have not those traditions, and where it is not a natural growth, that is no proof that parliamentary government has failed. — Stanley Baldwin
Machiavelli's teaching would hardly have stood the test of Parliamentary government, for public discussion demands at least the profession of good faith. — Lord Acton
Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.
Anarchism is that political philosophy which advocates the maximization of individual responsibility and the reduction of concentrated power regal, dictatorial, parliamentary: the institutions which go loosely by the name of "government" to a vanishing minimum. — Alex Comfort
I believe that, without party, Parliamentary government is impossible. — Benjamin Disraeli
One of the most enjoyable things I do at Government House and when I travel around Australia is to talk with children. I tell them about our parliamentary democracy - and I often do that as I'm walking into an Executive Council meeting next door! — Quentin Bryce
I am a woman, I am a housewife, I am a government official, I've been twice a government secretary, I've been leader of a parliamentary group, I am an economist. — Josefina Vazquez Mota
Parliamentary Quotes
It is the soldier and the army, not parliamentary majorities and decisions, that have welded the German Empire together. I put my trust in the army. — Wilhelm II
The war of ideas is a Greek invention. It is one of the most important inventions ever made. Indeed, the possibility of fighting with with words and ideas instead of fighting with swords is the very basis of our civilization, and especially of all its legal and parliamentary institutions. — Karl Popper
It is impossible to practice parliamentary politics without having patience, decency, politeness and courtesy. — Khaleda Zia
The essence of liberalism is negotiation, a cautious half measure, in the hope that the definitive dispute, the decisive bloody battle, can be transformed into a parliamentary debate and permit the decision to be suspended forever in an everlasting discussion. — Carl Schmitt
It is not surprising that more and more people are coming to the conclusion that the ballot box is no longer an instrument that will secure political solutions... They can see that the parliamentary democracy we boast of is becoming a sham. — Tony Benn
We know that communism is the right hypothesis. All those who abandon this hypothesis immediately resign themselves to the market economy, to parliamentary democracy-the form of state suited to capitalism-and to the inevitable and 'natural' character of the most monstrous inequalities. — Alain Badiou
The first organised opposition by women to women's suffrage in England dates from 1889, when a number of ladies led by Mrs Ward appealed against the proposed extension of the Parliamentary suffrage to women. — Millicent Fawcett
The much-lauded parliamentary democracy in India has been unable to protect a genuine democratic set-up in Kashmir. — Nyla Ali Khan
To decide once every few years which members of the ruling class is to repress and crush the people through parliament-this is the real essence of bourgeois parliamentarism, not only in parliamentary- constitutional monarchies, but also in the most democratic republics. — Vladimir Lenin
Referendums are a democratic instrument, but so are decisions reached in a parliamentary democracy. I advise extreme caution when it comes to referendums. In Germany too. — Martin Schulz
Democratic Government Quotes
My mission is to lead the country out of a bad situation of corruption, depression and slavery. After I rid the country of these vices, I will then organize and supervise a general election of a genuinely democratic civilian government. — Idi Amin
The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. — Edward Bernays
The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power. — Franklin D. Roosevelt
The world is governed by institutions that are not democratic - the World Bank, the IMF, the WTO. — Jose Saramago
When I saw how the European Union was developing, it was very obvious what they had in mind was not democratic. In Britain, you vote for a government so the government has to listen to you, and if you don't like it you can change it. — Tony Benn
If when I die, I am still a dictator, I will certainly go down into the oblivion of all dictators. If, on the other hand, I succeed in establishing a truly stable foundation for a democratic government, I will live forever in every home in China. — Chiang Kai-shek
A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it. — Alexis de Tocqueville
Democracy is four wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. — Ambrose Bierce
For us, the government of Venezuelan Nicolas Maduro is not a government that allows democratic plurality. It does not allow for there to be a real opposition, and that is not democratic. — Nayib Bukele
People live with the illusion that we have a democratic system, but it's only the outward form of one. In reality we live in a plutocracy, a government of the rich. — Jose Saramago
Representative Government Quotes
It is unthinkable that a national government which represents women should ignore the issue of the right of all women to political freedom. — Lucy Burns
Now is the time to alter our government. Now is the time to stop the movement toward oligarchy. Now is the time to create a government which represents all Americans and not just the 1%... No more excuses. We must all become involved in the political process. — Bernie Sanders
Among the popular and representative systems of government I do not approve of the federal system: it is too perfect; and it requires virtues and political talents much superior to our own. — Simon Bolivar
A State divided into a small number of rich and a large number of poor will always develop a government manipulated by the rich to protect the amenities represented by their property. — Harold Laski
We need a stronger national voice for social workers which leads to a change in how the profession is viewed and its ability to represent itself to other professional bodies and with central government. — Andy Sawford
The Popular Unity government represented the first attempt anywhere to build a genuinely democratic transition to socialism - a socialism that, owing to its origins, might be guided not by authoritarian bureaucracy, but by democratic self-rule. — Salvador Allende
The spread of democracy, the new foundation of the rule of law, and the creation of fledgling representative governments that honor and respect human rights-together these actions spell out the increasing marginalization of the terrorists, as they have fewer and fewer places to run and hide. — John Cornyn
The word 'security' is a broad, vague generality whose contours should not be invoked to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment. The guarding of military and diplomatic secrets at the expense of informed representative government provides no real security. — Hugo Black
Canadians should realise when they are well off under the Monarchy. For the vast majority of Canadians, being a Monarchy is probably the only form of government acceptable to them. I have always been for parliamentary democracy and I think the institution of Monarchy with the Queen heading it all has served Canada well. — Pierre Trudeau
Parliamentary government is simply a mild and disguised form of compulsion. We agree to try strength by counting heads instead of breaking heads, but the principle is exactly the same... The minority gives way not because it is convinced that it is wrong, but because it is convinced that it is a minority. — James Fitzjames Stephen
There is an urgent need to-day for the citizens of a democracy to think well. It is not enough to have freedom of the Press and parliamentary institutions. Our difficulties are due partly to our own stupidity, partly to the exploitation of that stupidity, and partly to our own prejudices and personal desires. — Susan Stebbing
I'm much more attracted personally to governments going their full term. It's very hard to have a fixed term election I know with ah... a parliamentary democracy, but I've always had an instinct to say there should be a fixed term. — Jim Bolger
No matter how many troops we have in place or how long they stay, we cannot impose a parliamentary democracy there any more than the insurgents can impose a theocracy. — Nick Clooney
Christians living in a democracy should always vote if they can. If they cannot in conscience bring themselves to vote for any of the candidates on offer (in the UK quite often there are several candidates for a parliamentary seat) they might consider deliberately spoiling the ballot paper as a sad protest which still says 'but I believe in being involved'. — N. T. Wright
Germany was a parliamentary democracy with many, many humane and decent people who kept writing in their journals - I've read these journals, these memoirs - "Surely our leaders will stop this nonsense. Surely someone will take on these thugs. Surely the pendulum will swing back." Everyone was sitting at home going, "Well, they haven't come for me. This is crazy, but surely someone's going to take care of it." We all have to take care of it. — Naomi Wolf
The American system is, in many ways, more difficult, certainly far more expensive and much longer than a parliamentary system, and I really admire the people who subject themselves to it. Even when I, you know, think they should not be elected president, I still think, well, you know, good for you I guess, you're out there promoting democracy and those crazy ideas of yours. — Hillary Clinton
Look, there is parliamentary democracy in most European countries, there is parliamentary democracy in Japan, there is parliamentary democracy in many countries, but in the United States, for some reason, the State is organized differently, there is quite a stringent presidential republic. — Vladimir Putin
It would appear that the traditional parliamentary democracies can offer no fundamental opposition to that automatism of technological civilization and the industrial-consumer society, for they too are being dragged helplessly along by it. People are manipulated in ways that are infinitely more subtle and refined than the brutal methods used in post-totalitarian societies. — Vaclav Havel
Parliamentary democracy is, in truth, little more than a means of securing a periodical change in the management team, which is then allowed to preside over a system that remains in essence intact. If the British people were ever to ask themselves what power they truly enjoyed under our political system they would be amazed to discover how little it is — Tony Benn
This is not the kind of country where you would feel comfortable if you were opposed to democracy, parliamentary law, independent courts and so I would say to people who don't feel comfortable with those values there might be other countries where they'd feel more comfortable with their own values or beliefs. — Peter Costello
The major western democracies are moving towards corporatism. Democracy has become a business plan, with a bottom line for every human activity, every dream, every decency, every hope. The main parliamentary parties are now devoted to the same economic policies - socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor - and the same foreign policy of servility to endless war. This is not democracy. It is to politics what McDonalds is to food. — John Pilger
In Conclusion
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