Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. — George Bernard Shaw
Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. — George Bernard Shaw
Democracy is not compatible with financial oligarchy. — Che Guevara
Democracy in itself does not define or guarantee a free society. History has told many stories of democratic societies that have degenerated into corruption, plunder, and tyranny. — Richard Ebeling
We're not a democracy. It's a terrible misunderstandin g and a slander to the idea of democracy to call us that. In reality, we're a plutocracy: a government by the wealthy. — Ramsey Clark
Democracy allows for A and B to band together to rip off C. This is not justice, but a moral outrage. — Hans-Hermann Hoppe
In an autocracy, one person has his way; in an aristocracy, a few people have their way; in a democracy, no one has his way. — Celia Green
The idea of democracy has been stripped of it moral imperatives and come to denote hollowness and hypocrisy. — Paul Wellstone
The deadliest foe of democracy is not autocracy but liberty frenzied. — Otto Hermann Kahn
A modern democracy is a tyranny whose borders are undefined; one discovers how far one can go only by traveling in a straight line until one is stopped. — Norman Mailer
A democracy is no more than an aristocracy of orators. The people are so readily moved by demagogues that control must be exercised by the government over speech and press. — Thomas Hobbes
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
Democratic Country Quotes
We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country. — Al Gore
And I think to be in NATO for the countries of our region, it means more guarantees for us, it means more responsibility for our common security, but it means fulfillment of all standards of civilized world, like protection of human rights and democratic mechanisms. — Aleksander Kwasniewski
South Africa now needs skilled and educated people to say 'How do we manage and develop this democratic country?' — Thabo Mbeki
My critics always forget to mention that I was democratically elected, the others were not. Everyone in Uganda can challenge me, everyone can vote, the elections are free. Not many countries have achieved what we did. — Yoweri Museveni
The DRC is neither democratic, nor a republic. It is the second-largest country in Africa, bigger than Germany, France, and Spain combined and contains the Congo Rainforest, second only to the Amazon as the largest in the world. — Tim Marshall
We will not hesitate to take any decision that guarantees the country's security and stability in light of our authentic democratic approach. — Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah
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.
The American spirit wears no political label. In service to others and yes, in sacrifice for our country, there are no Republicans; there are no Democrats; there are only Americans. — John F. Kerry
We want only peace, to build up our country. World opinion is paying great attention to the threat against Democratic Kampuchea. They are anxious, they fear Kampuchea cannot oppose the Vietnamese. This could hurt the interests of the Southeast Asian countries and all of the world's countries. — Pol Pot
If we really love and cherish Taiwan, we should hold our hands in unity to protect our country and our democratic values with the most humble and tolerant hearts. — Chen Shui-bian
True Democracy Quotes
True democracy or the swaraj of the masses can never come through untruthful and violent means. — Lal Bahadur Shastri
If voting made any difference they wouldn't let us do it. — Mark Twain
A Brother may not be a Friend, but a Friend will always be a Brother. — Benjamin Franklin
There cannot be true democracy unless women's voices are heard. There cannot be true democracy unless women are given the opportunity to take responsibility for their own lives. — Hillary Clinton
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
Democracy is liberty - a liberty which does not infringe on the liberty nor encroach on the rights of others; a liberty which maintains strict discipline, and makes law its guarantee and the basis of its exercise. This alone is true liberty; this alone can produce true democracy. — Chiang Kai-shek
Women's fight for equal rights is essentially a humanist and peaceful struggle for true democracy, and a higher form of civilization. — Leyla Zana
People often say that, in a democracy, decisions are made by a majority of the people. Of course, that is not true. Decisions are made by a majority of those who make themselves heard and who vote - a very different thing. — Walter Judd
It is not true that democracy will always safeguard freedom of conscience better than autocracy. Witness the most famous of all trials. Pilate was, from the standpoint of the Jews, certainly the representative of autocracy. Yet he tried to protect freedom. And he yielded to a democracy. — Joseph Schumpeter
It is not true that democracy will always safeguard freedom of conscience better than autocracy. Witness the most famous of all trials. Pilate was, from the standpoint of the Jews, certainly the representative of autocracy. Yet he tried to protect freedom. And he yielded to a democracy. — Joseph A. Schumpeter
Democracies Have Quotes
Persuade your fellow citizens it's a good idea and pass a law. That's what democracy is all about. It's not about nine superannuated judges who have been there too long, imposing these demands on society. — Antonin Scalia
Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Elections belong to the people. It's their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters. — Abraham Lincoln
The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders...tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. — Hermann Goring
In 1956, I shall not go to the polls. I have not registered. I believe that democracy has so far disappeared in the United States that no 'two evils' exist. There is but one evil party with two names, and it will be elected despite all I can do or say. — W. E. B. Du Bois
We live in a country that talks about being the home of the brave and the land of the free, and we have the highest incarceration rate in the world. — Bryan Stevenson
People always have been and they always will be stupid victims of deceit and self-deception in politics. — Vladimir Lenin
We have a wonderful history behind us. ... If you are unable to demonstrate to the world that you have this record, the world will say to you, 'You are not worthy to enjoy the blessings of democracy or anything else'. — Carter G. Woodson
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
We sincerely ask the Beijing authorities across the Strait to view the election result from a positive perspective, to accept the democratic decision of the Taiwanese people. — Chen Shui-bian
The next time they give you all that civic bullshit about voting, keep in mind that Hitler was elected in a full, free democratic election — George Carlin
The adoring crowds and overwhelming Democratic support in the 2008 election was based largely on joy at jettisoning Bush and the appeal of electing a superbly qualified charismatic African American leader. — Mary Frances Berry
100 political parties put together can never defeat the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, come 2015 presidential election. — Patience Jonathan
For Putin, the illegal overthrow of Ukraine's democratically elected and pro-Russian president —which he rightly labeled a coup— was the final straw. —
Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work, and then they get elected and prove it. — P. J. O'Rourke
All the president is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing, and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway. — Harry S. Truman
I was democratically elected leader of our party for a new kind of politics by 60% of Labour members and supporters, and I will not betray them by resigning. Today's vote on Brexit has no constitutional legitimacy. — Jeremy Corbyn
It is difficult to understand these people who democratically take part in elections and a referendum, but are then incapable of democratically accepting the will of the people. — Jose Saramago
If education does not create a need for the best in life, then we are stuck in an undemocratic, rigid caste society. — Sargent Shriver
It’s almost hard to imagine anything more undemocratic than the view that political officials should not debate American wars in public, but only express concerns ‘privately with the administration.’ That’s just a small sliver of Johnson’s radicalism: replacing Feingold in the Senate with Ron Johnson would be a civil liberties travesty analogous to the economic travesty from, say, replacing Bernie Sanders with Lloyd Blankfein. — Glenn Greenwald
Profit sharing in the form of stock distributions to workers would help to democratize the ownership of America's vast corporate wealth which is today appallingly undemocratic and unhealthy. — Walter Reuther
Force, violence, pressure, or compulsion with a view to conformity, are both uncivilized and undemocratic — Mahatma Gandhi
Everybody keeps calling for Excellence - excellence not just in schooling, throughout society. But as soon as somebody or something stands out as Excellent, the other shout goes up: "Elitism!" And whatever produced that thing, whoever praises that result, is promptly put down. "Standing out" is undemocratic. — Jacques Barzun
I dislike Communism because it is undemocratic, and capitalism because it favors exploitation. — Bertrand Russell
The basic proposal of the new education is to be that dunces and idlers must not be made to feel inferior to intelligent and industrious pupils. That would be 'undemocratic. — C. S. Lewis
Popular congresses are the only means to achieve popular democracy. Any system of government other than popular congresses is undemocratic. — Muammar al-Gaddafi
This traditionally happens in Russia and in every other undemocratic country as well - the quest for a scapegoat won't be long, either. The easiest way to find a scapegoat is to ascribe that role to former governments. — Garry Kasparov
Some day, the public might actually revolt against the undemocratic system of seniority that allows Congress to keep the old ways of Washington ingrained into the culture of Congress. — Chuck Todd
The man who occupies the first place in an undemocratic state can give himself any award that takes his fancy, but it does not increase his authority - rather, the contrary. This was something Brezhnev and Chernenko did not understand. In all, Stalin had about as many decorations as, say, Mekhlis, and four or five times fewer than Brezhnev — Dmitri Volkogonov
We must not demonstrate any arrogance, and we must refrain from any irrational or undemocratic behavior. — Chen Shui-bian
Democracy sometimes appears paralyzed by those who take advantage of its freedoms in order to abuse them for undemocratic ends. — David Pryce-Jones
I'm always amazed at the American practice of allowing one party to a homosexual act to remain passive--it's so undemocratic. Sexmust be mutual. — W. H. Auden
The Palestinians are a despotic, undemocratic grouping which promotes a religious war against Israel, a democracy, through terror. — Melanie Phillips
For undemocratic reasons and for motives not of State, they arrive at their conclusions -- largely inarticulate. Being void of self-expression they confide their views to none; but sometimes in a smoking room, one learns why things were done. — Rudyard Kipling
It is entirely undemocratic to continue these burdens on the people for years and years after the requirements of protection have been met and the representatives of these industries have become incrusted with wealth. — John Griffin Carlisle
The European Union is effectively a union dominated by the German political and economic elite. Its main function is to serve as a nucleus for financial capitalism and to ease the road for that capitalism. The other functions just irritate everyone: it's undemocratic; decisions are not made by parliament; the European Parliament is not sovereign. — Tariq Ali
Freedom can flow from order. That is not to say that freedom always flows from order because you can have a totalitarian order and you can have an undemocratic order from which freedom will not flow, but that surest way to destroy freedom is to have chaos. — Pierre Trudeau
Socialism is a fundamentally different social system where the world's resources are not controlled by a greedy, undemocratic oligarchy. This is not the same as the capitalist welfare states that have existed in some European countries. — Kshama Sawant
The idea that the GLC should be abolished at a stroke is ill though out, undemocratic and will cost the people of London dear. — Ken Livingstone
I think that our reliance on dynasty is part of the problem here, because dynasty is inherently undemocratic. It's a very entitled thing to suggest that only one member of one family can save a country of 180 million people. It has to be about people who live in constituencies coming forward to represent them, not the sort of parachuted, elite class that comes in, wins elections and then leaves. — Fatima Bhutto
There can be no clearer indication of how undemocratic the way we finance campaigns is than the fact that only one-quarter of 1% donate $200 or more, and only one-tenth of 1% gives $1,000 or more. — Arianna Huffington
If the region truly becomes democratic, an undemocratic bit of earth would remain here. It's hard to imagine that the world, especially the Arab world, would tolerate this. — Tom Segev
The skeptical relativist attempt to mandate a naked public square is undemocratic. It is also a danger to democracy. — Henry Hyde
To consider powerful souls as if they were a useful public resource is quite foreign to our customs. In a small sense it is undemocratic, for it assumes that some people really know better in a way that must seem arbitrary to most. In a large sense it is certainly democratic, in that it makes the great man serve as a man. — Paul Goodman
The capitalist workplace is one of the most profoundly undemocratic institutions on the face of the Earth. Workers have no say over decisions affecting them. If workers sat on the board of directors of democratically operated self-managed enterprises, they wouldn't vote for the wildly unequal distribution of profits to benefit a few and for cutbacks for the many. — Richard D. Wolff
As trans advocacy has institutionalized and developed, the context of the undemocratic nature of US non-profits and the ways that white, wealthy individuals can intensely influence the directions of advocacy have increasingly come to the surface for trans activists. — Dean Spade
Since Israel is a democratic state surrounded by essentially undemocratic states which have sworn her destruction, those interested in democracy everywhere must support Israel's existence. — Bayard Rustin
If the Federal Reserve pursues a policy which Congress or the President believes not to be in the public interest, there is nothing Congress can do to reverse the policy. Nor is there anything the people can do. Such bastions of unaccountable power are undemocratic. The Federal Reserve System must be reformed, so that it is answerable to the elected representatives of the people. — Wright Patman
We must see that it is foolish, sinful and suicidal to destroy the health of nature for the sake of an economy that is really not an economy at all but merely a financial system, one that is unnatural, undemocratic, sacrilegious, and ephemeral. — Wendell Berry
Down to the present day the luminous image of democracy has often served as a pretext for the most undemocratic actions. — Randal Marlin
Intriguingly, in poll after poll, when Americans are asked what public institutions they most respect, three bodies are always at the top of their list: the Supreme Court, the armed forces, and the Federal Reserve System. All three have one thing in common: they are insulated from the public pressures and operate undemocratically. It would seem that Americans admire these institutions, precisely because they lead rather than follow. — Fareed Zakaria
I'd shrink government in a minute, if I could shrink GM, Bank of America, and all these immoral corporations that operate by an undemocratic code, with no soul and no conscience. — Jerry Brown
The main division in the world is between democratic and undemocratic countries. — Michael Mandelbaum
Through an unwieldy combination of big government, big military, big business, big labor and big cities, we have created an unworkable mega-nation which defies central management and control. Not only is the United States too big, but it has also become too authoritarian and too undemocratic, and its states assume too little responsibility for the solution of their own social, economic, and political problems. — Thomas Naylor
The courtroom is one instance of the fact that while our society may be liberal and democratic in some large and vague sense, its moving parts, its smaller chambers--its classrooms, its workplaces, its corporate boardrooms, its jails, its military barracks--are flagrantly undemocratic, dominated by one commanding person or a tiny elite of power. — Howard Zinn
We have educated ourselves into a world from which wonder, and he fear and dread and splendor and freedom of wonder have been banished. Of course wonder is costly. You couldn't incorporate it into a modern state, beacuse it is the antithesis of the anxiously worshiped security which is what a modern state is asked to give. Wonder is marvellous but it is also cruel, cruel, cruel. It is undemocratic, discriminatory and pitiless. — Robertson Davies
Love, it turns out, is as undemocratic as money, so it accumulates around people who have plenty of it already: the sane, the healthy, the lovable. — Nick Hornby
In Conclusion
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