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 Tocqueville
We are not jumping on the austerity bandwagon. A healthy economy is by far the most important thing for Social Democrats. — Helle Thorning-Schmidt
Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God's children. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Our country, like every modern state, needs profound democratic reforms. It needs political and ideological pluralism, a mixed economy and protection of human rights and the opening up of society. — Andrei Sakharov
We have to re-invent socialism. It can't be the kind of socialism that we saw in the Soviet Union, but it will emerge as we develop new systems that are built on cooperation, not competition. — Hugo Chavez
A community is democratic only when the humblest and weakest person can enjoy the highest civil, economic, and social rights that the biggest and most powerful possess. — A. Philip Randolph
Short Social Democracy Quotes
Socialism is a fraud, a comedy, a phantom, a blackmail. — Benito Mussolini
Democracy is not a form of government, but a form of social organisation. — B. R. Ambedkar
Democracies can't handle austerity measures very well. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Socialism is workable only in heaven where it isn't needed, and in hell where they've got it. — Cecil Palmer
Social Democracy Image Quotes
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.
What Is Social Democracy Quotes
Democracy does not require perfect equality, but it does require that citizens share a common life. What matters is that people of different backgrounds and social positions encounter one another, and bump up against one another, in the course of ordinary life. — Michael Sandel
Journalism is what maintains democracy. It's the force for progressive social change. — Andrew Vachss
Subtler and more far-reaching means of invading privacy have become available to the government. Discovery and invention have made it possible for the government, by means far more effective than stretching upon the rack, to obtain disclosure in court of what is whispered in the closet. — Louis D. Brandeis
Anti-social behavior is a trait of intelligence in a world full of conformists.
Contemporary social democracy is what I believe is the right concept. — Mikhail Gorbachev
What we're losing culturally the fastest, aside from natural resources and oil and the idea of democracy and social justice, is the ability to concentrate. — Art Spiegelman
To me, technology was a means to an end to achieve the social justice goals, stronger democracy and more effective government that is the aim of what I do. — Beth Simone Noveck
Right now, we happen to be in a general period of regression, not just in education. A lot of what's happening is sort of backlash to the 60s; the 60s were a democratizing period. — Noam Chomsky
How young people are represented betrays a great deal about what is increasingly new about the economic, social, cultural and political constitution of American society and its growing disinvestment in young people, the social state and democracy itself. — Henry Giroux
I don't think Edward Snowden deserves a death penalty or life in prison. I think that's inappropriate. I think that's why he fled, [because] that is what he faced. — Rand Paul
People call me a socialist sometimes. But, no, you gotta meet real socialists. You'll have a sense of what a socialist is. — Barack Obama
Social Democratic Quotes
A society with too few independent thinkers is vulnerable to control by disturbed and opportunistic leaders. A society which wants to create and maintain a free and democratic social system must create responsible independence of thought among its young. — John Dewey
I am a social democrat - I believe in pursuing greater equality and tackling social justice - but... you can't do that unless you have got a strong economy, unless you have got a vibrant business base earning the wealth that makes that possible. — Nicola Sturgeon
One of the problems we're facing is, in my view, that there are no globalized, youth-led, grassroots social movements advocating for democratic culture across Muslim-majority societies. — Maajid Nawaz
In the past 20 years and more since China embarked on the road of reform and opening up, we have moved steadfastly to promote political restructuring and vigorously build democratic politics under socialism. — Hu Jintao
The Socialist Party will no longer be running a candidate for president. The Democratic Party is leading this country to Socialism much faster than we could ever hope to. — Norman Thomas
We, the Social Democrats, are convinced that capitalism needs to be tamed a second time. The first time we achieved that in Germany for many decades with the social market economy. That is no longer enough. Now we need to do it in Europe and even globally. — Sigmar Gabriel
I am happy to note that the BJP as an organization is looking to creatively harness Power of Social Media. We have to ensure our Youth stays engaged in our Democratic process. We have to make our Democratic process accessible to them. Social media is an important tool for this. — Narendra Modi
Just imagine how boring life would be if we were all the same. My idea of a perfect world is one in which we really appreciated each other's differences: Short, tall; Democrat, Republican; black, white; gay, straight-a world in which all of us are equal, but definitely not the same. — Barbra Streisand
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
I would in fact tend to have more confidence in the outcome of a democratic decision if there was a minority that voted against it, than if it was unanimous... Social psychology has amply shown the strength of this bandwagon effect. — Jurgen Habermas
Democratic Socialism Quotes
The Founders were not democrats and socialists..., but conservatives who had a healthy distrust of political passions and who devised a complex system designed to frustrate the schemes of social redeemers and others convinced of their own invincible virtue. — David Horowitz
Social Democratic and trade union organs have approved of the illegal invasion of Belgium, of the massacre of suspected guerrillas, as well as their wives and children, as well as the destruction of their homes in various towns and districts. — Clara Zetkin
Social media spark a revelation that we, the people, have a voice, and through the democratization of content and ideas we can once again unite around common passions, inspire movements, and ignite change. — Brian Solis
When a leader is in the Democratic Party he's a boss. When he's in the Republican Party he's nothing but a leader. — Harry S. Truman
Iceland is capitalist social democratic, rather like the Nordic countries generally. The capital had a mayor who is an anarchist, but the city has been nothing like that. In fact a few years ago it was super-neoliberal, which led to the crash. — Noam Chomsky
Democrats are fighting for a new direction that includes protecting Social Security as well as making healthcare affordable, bringing down the high cost of gasoline, and making higher education more accessible for all Americans. — Jim Clyburn
There is a Party of fiscal responsibility... economic responsibility... social responsibility... civic responsibility... personal responsibility... and moral responsibility. That party is the Democratic Party. — Howard Dean
By its very nature and design, Network Marketing is a strikingly Fair, Democratic, Socially Responsible system of generating wealth. — Robert Kiyosaki
It is my expectation that Teacher Education for Democracy and Social Justice will become a rich resource for continuing this multi-layered conversation-from democratic belief to democratic action-that is the hallmark of educational renewal. — John Goodlad
The crucial role communists played in organizing industrial unions in the 1930s and struggling for social reforms, peace, and civil rights strengthened rather then undermined democratic forces. — Michael Parenti
Socialist Party Quotes
Now back in 1927 an American socialist, Norman Thomas, six times candidate for president on the Socialist Party ticket, said the American people would never vote for socialism. But he said under the name of liberalism the American people will adopt every fragment of the socialist program. — Ronald Reagan
All the parties of capitalist society, all its moralists and all its sycophants will perish beneath the debris of the impending catastrophe. The only party that will survive is the party of the world socialist revolution. — Leon Trotsky
The National Socialist Party in Austria never tried to hide its inclination for a greater Germany. — Arthur Seyss-Inquart
We took the name 'Liberal' because we were determined to be a progressive party, willing to make experiments, in no sense reactionary but believing in the individual, his rights, and his enterprise, and rejecting the socialist panacea. — Robert Menzies
The Labour party has never been a socialist party, although there have always been socialists in it - a bit like Christians in the Church of England. — Tony Benn
The American Constitution declares 'All men are born equal.' The British Socialist Party add: 'All men must be kept equal'. — Winston Churchill
The [Communist] Party has one objective: the creation of a socialist economy; and one means: the utilization of the class struggle. — Jean-Paul Sartre
If the Labour party goes back to reasserting its socialist and democratic beliefs, that's where I belong. — Shirley Williams
Environmentalists are a socialist group of individuals that are the tool of the Democrat Party. I'm proud to say that they are my enemy. They are not Americans, never have been Americans, never will be Americans. — Don Young
My whole life so far, my whole experience has been that our failure has been not to love enough. This conviction brought me to a rejection of the radical movement after my early membership in the Socialist Party, the Industrial Workers of the World, and the Communist affiliates I worked with. — Dorothy Day
Against Socialism Quotes
I saw that the camera could be a weapon against poverty, against racism, against all sorts of social wrongs. I knew at that point I had to have a camera. — Gordon Parks
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Moral justification is a powerful disengagement mechanism. Destructive conduct is made personally and socially acceptable by portraying it in the service of moral ends. This is why most appeals against violent means usually fall on deaf ears. — Albert Bandura
Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos. Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist. — George C. Marshall
Today Americans are overcome not by the sense of endless possibility but by the banality of the social order they have erected against it. — Christopher Lasch
I'm against having a Fed. It's socialism in its worst form. But until the Fed is gotten rid of, the only economic variable the poor have to counteract the injustices of the Fed is the minimum wage law. — Max Keiser
No mercy for these enemies of the people, the enemies of socialism, the enemies of the working people! War to the death against the rich and their hangers-on, the bourgeois intellectuals; war on the rogues, the idlers and the rowdies! — Vladimir Lenin
The winner must promote social jusitce, remove corruption and discrmination, and stand against political, cultural and economic plots. — Ayatollah Khamenei
The struggle against war and its social source, capitalism, presupposes direct, active, unequivocal support to the oppressed colonial peoples in their struggles and wars against imperialism. A 'neutral' position is tantamount to support of imperialism. — Leon Trotsky
My fight is not for racial sameness but for racial equality and against racial prejudice and discrimination. — John Oliver Killens
Socialist Economy Quotes
The broad liberal objective is a balanced and flexible "mixed economy," thus seeking to occupy that middle ground between capitalism and socialism whose viability has so long been denied by both capitalists and socialists. — Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
We want to ensure a multilateral development of society, the thriving of all sides of social life, economy, science and culture, the improvement of management, the moulding of the new man and the promotion of socialist ethics and equity. — Nicolae Ceausescu
No one can be, at the same time, a sincere Catholic and a true Socialist. — Pope Pius XI
It is essential to link enterprises on the basis of objective laws of a socialist economy and legal system. — Samora Machel
All the politics of the post-war period was about the clash between the Soviet Union and America, and virtually all issues ended up being subordinated to that. Now, the question is, what is the most a socialist can achieve in a global economy? — Ken Livingstone
It is not socialist, as some of our critics contend. It isn't purely capitalist, either. It is a new way. A third way. A more humane, trusting, productive, exhilarating, and, in every sense, rewarding way. — Ricardo Semler
Canada appears content to become a second-tier socialistic country, boasting ever more loudly about its economy and social services to mask its second-rate status. — Stephen Harper
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. — Albert Einstein
But we don't have an example of a democratic society existing in a socialist economy - which is the only real alternative to capitalism in the modern world. — Peter L. Berger
We will shortly become like Germany, France, the United Kingdom, or Sweden - a socialist democracy in which the government dominates the economy, determines private-sector priorities and offers a vastly expanded range of services to many more people at much higher taxes. — Dick Morris
Socialist Government Quotes
The United States of America took a giant step toward a totalitarian socialist government when the Supreme Court voted to uphold Obamacare, allowing the individual mandate for the government to force American citizens to buy health insurance whether they want to or not. — Charlie Daniels
The income tax is a twentieth-century socialist experiment that has failed. Before the income tax was imposed on us just 80 years ago, government had no claim to our income. Only sales, excise, and tariff taxes were allowed. — Alan Keyes
Feminism, Socialism, and Communism are one in the same, and Socialist/Communist government is the goal of feminism. — Catharine MacKinnon
Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic of them. — Margaret Thatcher
For those who aspire to live in a high cost, high tax, big government place, our nation and the world offers plenty of options. Vermont, Canada and Venezuela all offer you the opportunity to live in the socialist, big government paradise you long for. — Marco Rubio
No socialist government conducting the entire life and industry of the country could afford to allow free, sharp or violently worded expressions of public discontent. They would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo, no doubt very humanly directed in the first instance. — Winston Churchill
Public schools are government-established, politician- and bureaucrat-controlled, fully politicized, taxpayer-supported, authoritarian socialist institutions. In fact, the public-school system is one of the purest examples of socialism existing in America. — Tom L. Johnson
Government provided free tuition tends more and more to produce a uniform conformist education, with college faculties ultimately dependent for their jobs on the government, and so developing an economic interest in profession and teaching a statist, pro-government, and socialist ideology. — Henry Hazlitt
It's the Labour Government that have brought us record peacetime taxation. They've got the usual Socialist disease - they've run out of other people's money. — Margaret Thatcher
Government-to-government aid rests on socialistic assumptions and promotes socialism and stagnation, whereas private foreign investment rest on capitalist assumptions and promotes private enterprise and maximum economic growth. — Henry Hazlitt
Communism And Socialism Quotes
Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism - by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide. — Ayn Rand
We can and must write in a language which sows among the masses hate, revulsion, and scorn toward those who disagree with us. — Vladimir Lenin
Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. — John Steinbeck
... a bad attitude, that the love of money is the root of all evil and the rich are evil and greedy and all that stuff. It’s basically socialism and communism. — Robert Kiyosaki
If we hope and even assume that the social question will be answered through communism, and not in this or that country but in the world, any thought of centralization must be a monstrosity. — Johann Most
Inflation is a tax, and that tax can only be imposed by governments. — Russell Napier
Monetary policy is about the redistribution of wealth and income from the masses to the classes. — Russell Napier
And after Brexit, we will be free to determine our economic future, with control over our money, laws and borders. — Liz Truss
Under socialism all will govern in turn and will soon become accustomed to no one governing. — Vladimir Lenin
Capitalism And Socialism Quotes
Capitalism inevitably and by virtue of the very logic of its civilization creates, educates and subsidizes a vested interest in social unrest. — Joseph Schumpeter
Community connectedness is not just about warm fuzzy tales of civic triumph. In measurable and well-documented ways, social capital makes an enormous difference in our lives...Social capital makes us smarter, healthier, safer, richer, and better able to govern a just and stable democracy. — Robert D. Putnam
If one rejects laissez faire on account of mans fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action. — Ludwig von Mises
Capitalism inevitably and by virtue of the very logic of its civilization creates, educates and subsidizes a vested interest in social unrest. — Joseph A. Schumpeter
We have deluded ourselves into believing the myth that capitalism grew and prospered out of the Protestant ethic of hard work and sacrifices. Capitalism was built on the exploitation of black slaves and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the poor, both black and white, both here and abroad. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
There's a cushy socialism for the rich and this kind of brutal, merciless capitalism for the poor. — Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
What really matters from the point of view of social capital and civic engagement is not merely nominal membership, but active and involved membership. — Robert D. Putnam
A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose between two social systems; it chooses between social cooperation and the disintegration of society. Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism; it is an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings. — Ludwig von Mises
Voluntary exchange is more moral than forced redistribution. — Ben Shapiro
There is one and only one responsibility of business: to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game. — Milton Friedman
The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money. — Alexis de Tocqueville
Equality is the heart and essence of democracy, freedom, and justice, equality of opportunity in industry, in labor unions, schools and colleges, government, politics, and before the law. There must be no dual standards of justice, no dual rights, privileges, duties, or responsibilities of citizenship. No dual forms of freedom. — A. Philip Randolph
We, in Africa, have no more need of being 'converted' to socialism than we have of being 'taught' democracy. Both are rooted in our past -- in the traditional society which produced us. — Julius Nyerere
Power, after all, is not just military strength. It is the social power that comes from democracy, the cultural power that comes from freedom of expression and research, the personal power that entitles every Arab citizen to feel that he or she is in fact a citizen, and not just a sheep in some great shepherd's flock. — Edward Said
Those who deplore our militants, who exhort patience in the name of a false peace, are in fact supporting segregation and exploitation. They would have social peace at the expense of social and racial justice. They are more concerned with easing racial tension than enforcing racial democracy. — A. Philip Randolph
Everybody counts in applying democracy. And there will never be a true democracy until every responsible and law-abiding adult in it, without regard to race, sex, color or creed has his or her own inalienable and unpurchasable voice in government. — Carrie Chapman Catt
We’ll get spades in the ground to make sure people are not facing unaffordable energy bills and we will also make sure that we are building hospitals, schools, roads and broadband. — Liz Truss
I don’t object to some people being richer… I object to gain of wealth through political connections rather than earning it by merit. — Edward O. Thorp
This is taking place inside Europe. This is taking place inside a once great nation. The nation that invented democracy. We are on the edge of total social breakdown. And frankly, as far as the euro is concerned and the austerity measures are concerned, the medicine is killing the patient. — Nigel Farage
In Europe, it appears that in the name of democracy, elites are pursuing an autocratic, centralized power, seeking economic control and social regimentation. — Maggie Gallagher
Kill the middleman of necessity, push power to the edges and build systems that are equally fair for the least amongst us. — Charles Hoskinson
Our military offensive is indispensable, since force must be met by force. But our social offensive is the extra weapon which the enemy cannot produce. Here the enemy meets democracy's strongest element-the ability to realize and satisfy the needs of its people without taking from them their freedom and dignity as human beings. — Ramon Magsaysay
A network built by the people, for the people… — Micky Watkins
You can’t have a democracy when people don’t learn to put themselves in the shoes of another person, who can’t think what their policies mean for others. — Martha C. Nussbaum
... As long as you continue to tar social democracy with all the crimes of communism, I feel equally entitled to tar the free market with the crimes of slavery, segregation, colonialism and genocide; piss me off and I'll add fascism and the Nazis. — Greg Erwin
One of the strengths of our nation has always been a strong middle class who could afford their own homes and send their children to school. — James Sinegal
Democracy has the power to quickly spread. But its erosion can happen just as fast. Democracy is freedom. We need to stand up for it. — Ursula von der Leyen
According to Lenin, socialism and democracy are indivisible.... The essence of perestroika lies in the fact that it unites socialism with democracy and revives the Leninist concept of socialist construction both in theory and in practice. We want more socialism and, therefore, more democracy. — Mikhail Gorbachev
I was interested in the ideas – freedom, free speech and having control of my own life. That’s why I became a Tory. — Liz Truss
Women’s suffrage is about feminism, but feminism is about fairness. — Meghan Markle
I had never met anyone of my own age that was a Tory, so going to university and seeing people who were Tories and who believed in what I believed in was an eye-opener. — Liz Truss
No less characteristic in a democracy is social justice. This demands a solution to the frightening indexes of infant mortality, of malnutrition, lack of education illiteracy, wages not sufficient to sustain life — Rigoberta Menchu
As an American I am of course fundamentally opposed to democracy and to anyone advocating or defending democracy, which in theory and practice is the basis of socialism. — Rose Wilder Lane
The more that social democracy develops, grows, and becomes stronger, the more the enlightened masses of workers will take their own destinies, the leadership of their movement, and the determination of its direction into their own hands. — Rosa Luxemburg
Reality has changed, and we changed with it. However, I never changed sides. I have always been on the side of justice, democracy and social equality. — Dilma Rousseff
Democracy means not "I am as good as you are" but "You are as good as I am.". — Theodore Parker
To be clear, civilization is not the same as society. Civilization is a specific, hierarchical organization based on 'power over.' Dismantling civilization, taking down that power structure, does not mean the end of all social order. It should ultimately mean more justice, more local control, more democracy, and more human rights, not less. — Derrick Jensen
For too long, too many people dependent on Social Security have been cruelly frightened by individuals seeking political gain through demagoguery and outright falsehood, and this must stop. — Ronald Reagan
Democracy is the menopause of Western society, the Grand Climacteric of the body social. Fascism is its middle-aged lust. — Jean Baudrillard
But there is nothing idealized or romantic about the difference between a society whose arrangements roughly serve all its citizens (something otherwise known as social justice) and one whose institutions have been converted into a stupendous fraud. That can be the difference between democracy and plutocracy. — Bill Moyers
For many Washington liberals, terrorism was not the instrument of political fanatics and evil men, but was the product of social conditions - poverty, racism and oppression - for which the Western democracies, including Israel were always ultimately to blame. — David Horowitz
The freedom and human capacities of individuals must be developed to their maximum but individual powers must be linked to democracy in the sense that social betterment must be the necessary consequence of individual flourishing. — Henry Giroux
You have to stand guard over the development and maintenance of Islamic democracy, Islamic social justice and the equality of manhood in your own native soil. — Muhammad Ali Jinnah
In the strict sense of the term, a true democracy has never existed, and never will exist. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau
If the country is to survive as a democracy it will depend on voters who understand how our political institutions have evolved and the events that went into their creation. A nation's sense of its history is indistinguishable from its social cohesion. — Alan Bullock
Socialism is the completion of democracy, not the negation of it. — Terry Eagleton
People who object to weapons aren't abolishing violence, they're begging for rule by brute force, when the biggest, strongest animals among men were always automatically 'right.' Guns ended that, and social democracy is a hollow farce without an armed populace to make it work. — L. Neil Smith
In Conclusion
Which quotation resonated with you best? Did you enjoy our collection of social democracy quotes? Or may be you have a slogan about social democracy to suggest. Let us know using our contact form.
Citation
Feel free to cite and use any of the quotes in this collection of social democracy quotations. For popular citation styles(APA, Chicago, MLA), please use this citation page.
