Top 100 Good Democracy Quotes
#1. Our experience shows - and survey after survey reveals - institutions are run better, communities are healthier when women are involved in solving the challenges of our society. Equal representation does not just lead to good democracy: it is democracy.
Cherie Blair
#2. We also call upon the king to hand over power to the political parties and for the political parties to shoulder their responsibility and turn the people's demands for democracy and good governance into reality.
Joseph Adam Ereli
#3. Don't fully trust anyone until he has stuck with a good cause which he saw was losing.
Morton Blackwell
#4. An ordinary Turk, an ordinary Arab, an ordinary Tunisian can change history. We believe that democracy is good, and that our people deserve it.
Ahmet Davutoglu
#5. Nobody should be allowed to tinker with democracy. We will not discontinue the good works of the past government.
Manmohan Singh
#7. Not many people were speaking truth to power in the '80s. I had a really good time doing it - I found it gratifying. It was a joy to have an opportunity to say what you believed. It's challenging to do it in fiction, but I liked writing the novels. I liked writing 'Democracy' particularly.
Joan Didion
#8. The money pigs of capitalist democracy: Money has made slaves of us. Money is the curse of mankind. It smothers the seed of everything great and good. Every penny is sticky with sweat and blood.
Joseph Goebbels
#9. The survival of democracy depends on the renunciation of violence and the development of nonviolent means to combat evil and advance the good.
A.J. Muste
#10. Empower yourselves with a good education, then get out there and use that education to build a country worthy of your boundless promise.
Michelle Obama
#11. You know, this idea of going around the world imposing democracy by growing a middle-class, a trading merchant class that is independent of your faith, is a good notion, but we're all partially different - it's no good imposing systems on people that it doesn't suit.
Damian Lewis
#12. No one is born a good citizen; no nation is born a democracy. Rather, both are processes that continue to evolve over a lifetime. Young people must be included from birth. A society that cuts off from its youth severs its lifeline.
Kofi Annan
#13. I think the good old British democracy should keep scrutinising and pressing to get the truth out.
Clare Short
#14. We talk about democracy as if it's a safeguard for individual rights ... Instead, it's become our way of intruding on rights, allegedly in the name of that most collectivist of concepts: The Common Good.
Jonathan D. Morris
#15. So in Asia I want to make - I want to succeed to make a model of what success, practicing democracy, and market economy. Then that will give a good influence over Asian countries.
Kim Dae-jung
#16. Democracy means free television, not good television, but free.
Johnny Carson
#17. Balancing the common good with the freedom and liberty to exercise that individuality has been and remains a challenge for those committed to democracy while understanding that the polis ensures our participation and therefore our citizenship.
David Blunkett
#18. 2014 Lok Sabha Elections is a battle between good governance agenda of the NDA versus the misgovernance and corruption of the UPA.
Narendra Modi
#19. The new social question is: democracy or the rule of the financial markets. We are currently witnessing the end of an era. The neoliberal ideology has failed worldwide. The U.S. movement Occupy Wall Street is a good example of this.
Sigmar Gabriel
#20. Let's win the peace and democracy the good people of Iraq so richly deserve after decades of tyranny.
Mike Pence
#21. Human Beings are just good enough to make democracy possible ... just bad enough to make it neccessary.
Reinhold Niebuhr
#22. I don't believe that government is good at picking technology, particularly technology that is changing. By the time you get it done and go through democracy, it's so outdated.
Michael Bloomberg
#23. 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.'
Isaac Asimov
#24. Profits should be for a purpose. Profits should be productive. You should make money for producing benefits that make the world a better place. Making money is a good thing when it is made in service to humanity or the democracy.
Andrew Young
#25. Intolerance, discourtesy and harshness ... are taboo in all good society and are surely contrary to the spirit of democracy.
Mahatma Gandhi
#26. Serving democracy and nourishing the common good is, for the media, something that requires not only attacking corrupt secrecies in a society, but also defending non-corrupt communication.
Rowan Williams
#27. If you want a good argument against democracy, spend five minutes with a voter.
Winston Churchill
#28. When you make the claim that something on the Internet is going to be good for democracy, you often [hear], 'Are you talking about the thing with the singing cats?'
Clay Shirky
#29. We say in a democracy that good ideas will drive out bad ones, so if the good ones aren't there, we're left with the bad ones
Barry McCaffrey
#30. Democracy is a poor system; the only thing that can be said for it is that it's eight times as good as any other method.
Robert A. Heinlein
#31. We visual communicators have so much good to share: rather than sharing our chemical and style addictions, we could be using our professional skills to help communicate health information, conflict resolution, democracy, technology.
David Berman
#32. It's the good old paradox of democracy. We are individually pretty small drops in the bucket, but collectively we are all powerful.
Damian Kulash
#33. Journalism, like democracy, is not something that is achieved. It is a work in progress, and not every day is as good as the last.
John Maxwell Hamilton
#34. There are only two kinds of books
good books and the others. The good are winnowed from the bad through the democracy of time.
Edward Abbey
#35. People cannot be free unless they are willing to sacrifice some of their interests to guarantee the freedom of others. The price of democracy is the ongoing pursuit of the common good by all of the people.
Saul Alinsky
#36. As you have fewer and fewer voices in a democracy, in a free society, it's not good to limit the number of voices.
Michael Moore
#37. He talked about democracy and good citizenship and about a good world where everyone did the best he could for the common good of all.
Betty Smith
#38. A man who doesn't detest a bad government is a fool. And if there were such a thing as a good government in earth, it would be a great joy to serve it.
Ursula K. Le Guin
#39. Democracy used to be a good thing, but now it has gotten into the wrong hands.
Jesse Helms
#40. Running a school where the students all succeed, even if some students have to help others to make the grade, is good preparation for democracy.
William Glasser
#41. I didn't know growing up what I wanted to do. I finally settled on broadcast journalism as a way to satisfy the urge to perform and also do something important, which is to give people in a democracy information to make good decisions.
Mort Crim
#42. Democracy is a poor system of government at best; the only thing that can honestly be said in its favor is that it is eight times as good as any other method the human race has ever tried.
Robert A. Heinlein
#43. Democracy means not "I am as good as you are" but "You are as good as I am.".
Theodore Parker
#44. Good citizenship and defending democracy means living up to the ideals and values that make this country great.
Ronald Reagan
#45. The better the information it has, the better democracy works. Silence and secrecy are never good for it.
Kate Adie
#46. To safeguard democracy the people must have a keen sense of independence, self-respect and their oneness, and should insist upon choosing as their representatives only such persons as are good and true.
Mahatma Gandhi
#47. Whether for good or evil, it is sadly inevitable that all political leadership requires the artifices of theatrical illusion. In the politics of a democracy, the shortest distance between two points is often a crooked line.
Arthur Miller
#48. What are the American ideals? They are the development of the individual for his own and the common good; the development of the individual through liberty; and the attainment of the common good through democracy and social justice.
Louis D. Brandeis
#49. The Arab Spring showed that people are not going to wait for an American president to make good on his big talk about democracy and human rights; they are going to fight for those rights themselves and overthrow pro-American dictators who stand in their way.
Pankaj Mishra
#50. Let's remember that the revolution in Tahrir Square was not anti-American, it was not anti-Israeli, it was for democracy and freedom. That's a good thing.
Stephen Hadley
#51. What is democracy? It is what it says, the rule of the people. It is as good as the people are, or as bad.
Mary Renault
#52. You have to be ready for anything. It's a good reminder about democracy. Voters can tell you to carry on, or chuck you out. You've got to be ready for both.
David Cameron
#53. The good news, to relieve all this gloom, is that a democracy is inherently self-correcting. Here, the people are sovereign. Inept political leaders can be replaced. Foolish policies can be changed. Disastrous mistakes can be reversed.
Theodore C. Sorensen
#54. And if you look at the experience of Turkey, for example, where the modern Islamists are in power and are doing fine - this is very good. Because democracy is not possible in the Muslim world without bringing in the Islamists or part of the Islamists who hate us now into these governments.
Yaroslav Trofimov
#55. A good education helps us make sense of the world and find our way in it
Mike Rose
#56. Democracy is good, but it is not good for an uneducated dogmatic society. Often, that society does not know how to choose wisely.
Debasish Mridha
#57. Good intentions are ubiquitous in politics; what is scarce is accurate beliefs.
Bryan Caplan
#58. Soothing assumptions about the good faith and shared interests of antagonists are natural to democracy, as is the desire to spend money on things other than defense. Getting a democracy to do what does not come naturally requires leadership.
George F. Will
#59. I do not think an enormous permanent underclass is a very good thing to have if you're attempting to operate something that at least pretends sometimes to be a democracy.
William Gibson
#61. It may well happen that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more constant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves.
James Madison
#62. In my world, a woman was the most powerful thing that I knew. Still is. A woman made the money in my house; a woman made my food. A woman beat my ass when I wasn't a good kid. Women were behind a lot of what spurred South Africa toward democracy.
Trevor Noah
#63. We're just trying to figure out what being a good citizen is, what participating in a democracy is, what taking responsibility for being an American citizen in a global context means to us.
Cecily McMillan
#64. Democracy will prevail when men believe the vote of Judas as good as that of Jesus Christ.
Thomas Carlyle
#65. What good is having the right to sit at a lunch counter if you can't afford to buy a hamburger?
Martin Luther King Jr.
#66. Democracy is threatened by the inertia of good people, by the selfishness of most people, and by the evil designs of a few people.
Stanley King
#67. I just really like the verve and muscle of good crime fiction, the narrative punch of it. The underlying principle of good crime fiction is an insistence on a kind of root democracy. I've always responded to that notion.
Daniel Woodrell
#68. If we think that democracy is a good thing, then we must believe that the public should know as much as possible about what the government it elects is doing. Snowden has said that he made the disclosures because "the public needs to decide whether these programs and policies are right or wrong.
Peter Singer
#69. 'Peace on earth, good will toward men' - democracy must cling to that message. For it is my deep conviction that democracy cannot live without that true religion which gives a nation a sense of justice and moral purpose.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
#70. There are certain things in a man that have to be won, not forced; inspired, not compelled. Among these are many, I should say most, of the things that constitute the good life. All are essential to democracy. All are proof against its enemies.
Alfred Whitney Griswold
#71. The Fayyad cabinet may well be the best the Palestinians ever get. But whatever its good qualities, there is no democracy.
Elliott Abrams
#72. Political civility is not about being polite to each other. It's about reclaiming the power of 'We the People' to come together, debate the common good and call American democracy back to its highest values amid our differences.
Parker Palmer
#73. Democracy is not a good that people can enjoy without trouble. It is, on the contrary, a treasure that must be daily defended and conquered anew by strenuous effort.
Ludwig Von Mises
#74. Democracy, good governance and modernity cannot be imported or imposed from outside a country.
Emile Lahoud
#75. I don't know. I love the idea of democracy, the hope, yes, I love that. I couldn't live without that. But the country? You mean the thing on the map, lines, everything inside the lines is good and nothing outside them matters? How can an adult love such a childish idea?
Ursula K. Le Guin
#76. I always assume that democracy is the only good form of government, quite frankly, and democracy is always to be preferred.
Jeane Kirkpatrick
#78. I'm all in favor of the democratic principle that one idiot is as good as one genius, but I draw the line when someone takes the next step and concludes that two idiots are better than one genius.
Leo Szilard
#79. Prosperity and democracy does seem to be a good way to wean a population off massive alcohol abuse.
Oliver Bullough
#80. If democracy is such a good thing, let's have more of it.
Dick Gregory
#81. The U.S.-led western alliance, while acting as an advocate of democracy, rule of law and human rights, is acting from the opposite position, rejecting the democratic principle of the sovereign right of states enshrined in the U.N. Charter and trying to decide for others what is good and what is bad.
Sergei Lavrov
#82. We're more concerned about climate or economic equality or racial justice or anything else that is good for people and the planet, we simply must also spend some time wresting back our money-marinated democracy. This will require getting money out of politics and then getting people back in.
Annie Leonard
#83. The acceptance of corporatism causes us to deny and undermine the legitimacy of the individual as citizen in a democracy. The result of such a denial is a growing imbalance which leads to our adoration of self-interest and our denial of the public good.
John Ralston Saul
#84. Self-Criticism is the secret weapon of democracy, and candor and confession are good for the political soul.
Adlai Stevenson I
#85. As Dio observed later, democracy sounded very well and good, but its results are seen not to agree at all with its title. Monarchy, on the contrary, has an unpleasant sound, but is a most practical form of government to live under. For it is easier to find a single excellent man than many of them.
Stacy Schiff
#86. President Bush announced tonight that he believes in democracy and that democracy can exist in Iraq. They can have a strong economy, they can have a good health care plan, and they can have a free and fair voting. Iraq? We can't even get this in Florida.
Jay Leno
#87. Democracy is good. I say this because other systems are worse.
Jawaharlal Nehru
#88. Aspiring dictators sometimes win elections, and elected leaders sometimes govern badly and threaten their neighbors ... History demonstrates that democracy usually follows good governance, not the reverse.
Rudy Giuliani
#89. Today the Iraqi and Afghan people are on the path to democracy and freedom. The governments that are rising will pose no threat to others. Instead of harboring terrorists, they're fighting terrorist groups. And this progress is good for the long-term security of all of us.
George W. Bush
#90. The story is about being loyal to the truth as a nation, that citizens of a democracy are collectively responsible for what their troops do in war, good or bad.
Kevin Sites
#91. For tyranny is a kind of monarchy which has in view the interest of the monarch only; oligarchy has in view the interest of the wealthy; democracy of the needy: none of them common good of all.
Aristotle.
#92. If at the end of the day the people of our city escape, it will be good.But if somehow our democracy remains standing - it will be even better.
Boaz Yakin
#93. In a democratic country everything is very simple: If you choose a good government, good things will happen; if you choose a bad government, bad things will happen!
Mehmet Murat Ildan
#94. Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.
H.L. Mencken
#95. I always believe that ultimately, if people are paying attention, then we get good government and good leadership. And when we get lazy, as a democracy and civically start taking shortcuts, then it results in bad government and politics.
Barack Obama
#96. Baseball serves as a good model for democracy in action: Every player is equally important and each has a chance to be a hero.
Edward Abbey
#97. Democracy will never be supplanted by a republic of experts - and that is a very good thing.
Thomas Piketty
#98. To define twentieth-century humanism briefly, I would say that it is a philosophy of joyous service for the greater good of all humanity in this natural world and advocating the methods of reason, science, and democracy.
Corliss Lamont
#99. Americans today are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism in the twentieth century. One advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so.
Timothy Snyder
#100. Democracy is too good to share with just anybody.
Nigel Rees
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
