Top 100 Quotes About Freedom And Democracy
#1. The problem is that democracy is not freedom. Democracy is simply majoritarianism, which is inherently incompatible with real freedom. Our founding fathers clearly understood this.
Ron Paul
#2. The Revolution introduced me to art, and in turn, art introduced me to the Revolution!
Albert Einstein
#3. I swear I will do everything in my power to change the situation in Tibet where human rights are being suppressed. Tibet seeks freedom and democracy and we agree on those values.
Shinzo Abe
#4. I think there is a heritage which I'm proud of, which is a fight for democracy, a fight for social justice, a fight for freedom. My grandfather went to jail or exile six times in his life, fighting for his principles for democracy, or for his country. And my father twice.
George Papandreou
#5. In this era of the global village, the tide of democracy is running. And it will not cease, not in China, not in South Africa, not in any corner of this earth, where the simple idea of democracy and freedom has taken root.
Paul Tsongas
#6. Those wanting to improve democracy in their countries should not wait for permission.
Bulent Ecevit
#7. 137 years later, Memorial Day remains one of America's most cherished patriotic observances. The spirit of this day has not changed - it remains a day to honor those who died defending our freedom and democracy.
Doc Hastings
#8. Nobody should have the right to eavesdrop, or you become a totalitarian state - the kind of state I escaped as a kid to come to this country where you have democracy and freedom of speech.
Jan Koum
#9. But you can live in the most democratic country on earth, and if you're lazy, obtuse or servile within yourself, you're not free.
Ignazio Silone
#10. If large numbers of people believe in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it. But if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them.
[Freedom of the Park, Tribune, 7 December 1945]
George Orwell
#11. The greatest fallacy of democracy is that everyone's opinion is worth the same.
Robert A. Heinlein
#12. Freedom, democracy, and socialism can only ever exist together; it is impossible to have any one without the other two.
Michel Templet
#14. I salute all the nations of the Arab Spring and I salute the heroic people of Syria who are striving for freedom, democracy and reform.
Ismail Haniyeh
#15. Free election of masters does not abolish the masters or the slaves.
Herbert Marcuse
#16. Freedom has nothing to do with having the right to vote for your oppressor; freedom is not having any form of oppression.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#18. Democracy, to maintain itself, must repeatedly conquer every cell and corner of the nation. How many of our public institutions and private businesses, our schools, hospitals, and domestic hearths are in reality little fascist states where freedom of speech is more rigorously excluded than vermin?
Jacques Barzun
#20. Belief in liberal freedom and democracy is always belief in it in a particular place, in a national home with histories that only those who are born in a place or who adopt its citizenship can hope to understand.
Michael Ignatieff
#21. Democracy evolves where freedom is able to determine its own policy.
John Dos Passos
#22. The East knew and to the present day knows only that One is Free; the Greek and the Roman world, that some are free; the German World knows that All are free. The first political form therefore which we observe in History, is Despotism, the second Democracy and Aristocracy, the third, Monarchy.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
#23. If you live in a democracy and don't have freedom of information, it's not a democracy. And people have to understand that if you don't have freedom of information online, it's not going to be offline, either.
Birgitta Jonsdottir
#24. I wanted to get far away from those who believed in cruelty, so then I went to France, a land of true freedom, democracy, equality and fraternity.
Josephine Baker
#25. If I preached unity, I must act like a unifier, even at the risk of perhaps alienating some of my own colleagues.
Nelson Mandela
#26. As long as the differences and diversities of mankind exist, democracy must allow for compromise, for accommodation, and for the recognition of differences.
Eugene McCarthy
#27. A vigorous democracy a democracy in which there are freedom from want, freedom from fear, freedom of religion, and freedom of speech would never succumb to communism or any other ism.
Helen Gahagan Douglas
#28. A child who does not think about what happens around him and is content with living without wondering whether he lives honestly is like a man who lives from a scoundrel's work and is on the road to being a scoundrel.
Jose Marti
#29. Democracy is alive, and like any other living thing it either flourishes and grows or withers and dies. There is no in-between. It is freedom and life or dictatorship and death.
Saul Alinsky
#30. Hong Kong is not just a global financial center. It's also a place with a lot of teens and youth who love freedom, democracy, and human rights.
Joshua Wong
#31. I think it is very important for any U.S. administration to be clear that America stands on the side of freedom and democracy and respect for individual rights.
Stephen Hadley
#32. America has never seen itself as a national state like all others, but rather as an experiment in human freedom and democracy.
Brent Scowcroft
#33. The E.U. is more than just a trade organization or a common market; it is a guarantee of democracy, freedom, justice, and human rights. Nations cannot stay in the E.U. if they do not respect these guarantees.
John Bruton
#34. Often the greatest progress happen in the most difficult of times.
Jeanette Coron
#35. Women in most countries have not achieved much, because they can't be liberated under the patriarchal, capitalist, imperialist and military system that determines the way we live now, and which is governed by power, not justice, by false democracy, not real freedom.
Nawal El Saadawi
#36. We certainly hoped perestroika would win out and that there would be changes. We knew all along that socialism could flourish only with a certain amount of freedom and democracy.
Stefan Heym
#37. 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
#38. We know that a large majority of the Australian society is extremely comfortable with a multicultural society, that we accept that living in a democracy means having a freedom to practise your religion within the limits of the law.
Tim Soutphommasane
#39. I do not want art for a few; any more than education for a few; or freedom for a few ...
William Morris
#40. The sheriff listened uneasily to a sound, very uncommon at elections, of the populace expressing an opinion contrary to that of the lord of the soil.
Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
#41. Dictatorships are one-way streets. Democracy boasts two-way traffic.
Alberto Moravia
#42. I regard freedom of expression as the primary right without which one can not have a proper functioning democracy.
Lord Hailsham
#43. Liberal Democracy is all about extending choice. Give people the option to decide their retirement age, and you immediately extend their freedom in a very significant way.
Charles Kennedy
#44. Freedom and democracy are nothing but instruments, just like stability. The goal is called progress and growth. Anyone who puts freedom ahead of stability is hurting growth.
Bashar Al-Assad
#45. Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
#46. In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than just ideals to be valued - they may be essential to survival.
Noam Chomsky
#47. I realized that democracy is indivisible, or rather, that freedom is indivisible. There are many clown-democracies in the Arab world, which have nothing to do with freedom.
Walid Jumblatt
#48. Democracy still has a real hope and chance in Iraq, and true freedom in this country would be the greatest testament to those who gave their lives for it.
Mary Landrieu
#49. Freedom of the press is essential to the preservation of a democracy; but there is a difference between freedom and license. Editorialists who tell downright lies in order to advance their own agendas do more to discredit the press than all the censors in the world.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
#50. We are inclined to confuse freedom and democracy, which we regard as moral principles, with the way in which they are practiced in America with capitalism, federalism, and the two-party system, which are not moral principles but simply the preferred and accepted practices of the American people.
J. William Fulbright
#51. The three main sources of scepticism are first, that not every people desires freedom; second, that democracy in certain parts of the world would be dangerous; and third, that there is little the world's democracies can do to advance freedom outside their countries.
Natan Sharansky
#52. Free man needs loyalty to the self first of all, and this implies the right to be himself
Joost A.M. Meerloo
#53. If a jerk burns the flag, America is not threatened, democracy is not under siege, freedom is not at risk.
Gary Ackerman
#54. A free and truly independent press - fiercely independent when necessary - is the red beating heart of freedom and democracy.
Dan Rather
#55. It is a logical absurdity to equate democracy with freedom in the way that mainstream political philosophers and commentators typically do. A system where individuals and minorities are at the mercy of unconstrained majorities hardly constitutes freedom in any meaningful sense.
Keith Preston
#56. We praise the strength, the patience and the longing of the people who did not stop thinking of freedom and democracy in these dark times
Joachim Gauck
#57. The Election Assistance Commission represents a major, unprecedented commitment from the federal government to sustained freedom and vibrant democracy. I am humbled by the prospect of being one its charter members.
DeForest Soaries
#58. 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
#59. I am most deeply concerned over a trend toward conformity, a growth of anti-intellectualism, which manifests itself in a sneering attitude toward education, science, and the arts. The tendency is to stifle mental freedom, which is the very basis of a democracy's life and growth.
Anais Nin
#60. Life in freedom is not easy, and democracy is not perfect.
John F. Kennedy
#61. President Obama is currently on a week-long trip to Africa, where he will promote freedom, democracy, and economic opportunity. I guess he figured it hasn't worked here - so try it somewhere else.
Jay Leno
#62. From the very beginning, the American dream meant proving to all mankind that freedom, justice, human rights and democracy were no utopia but were rather the most realistic policy there is and the most likely to improve the fate of each and every person.
Nicolas Sarkozy
#63. The challenge as we saw in the Nigerian project was to restructure the economy decisively in the direction of a modern free market as an appropriate environment for cultivation of freedom and democracy and the natural emergence of a new social order.
Ibrahim Babangida
#64. You don't get the fox to be in charge of the chicken coop. You don't give the outgoing regime - which has been practicing dictatorship, is an authoritarian system, it's a bunch of military people - the task of changing Egypt into a second republic, a new Egypt with democracy, freedom, rights, etc.
Mohamed ElBaradei
#65. I like to think I have the guts to stand up anonymously in a western democracy and call for things no-one else believes in - like peace and justice and freedom.
Banksy
#66. Democracy without respect for individual rights sucks. It's just ganging up against the weird kid, and I'm always the weird kid.
Penn Jillette
#68. President George Washington's namesake capital, once a marketplace for slave auctions, is now synonymous with democracy and freedom; so is the iconic Jefferson, who wanted to build an "Empire of Liberty" for the world.
Patrick Mendis
#70. We cannot cut and run. If we are to ensure freedom and democracy, it is essential that we follow through on our obligation to bring about stability in Iraq.
Richard Shelby
#71. In true democracy every man and woman is taught to think for himself or herself.
Mahatma Gandhi
#72. The New Deal repudiation of democracy has left the Republican Party alone the guardian of the Ark of the Covenant with its charter of freedom.
Herbert Hoover
#73. A free America ... means just this: individual freedom for all, rich or poor, or else this system of government we call democracy is only an expedient to enslave man to the machine and make him like it.
Frank Lloyd Wright
#75. 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
#77. Democracy has nothing to do with freedom. Democracy is a soft variant of communism, and rarely in the history of ideas has it been taken for anything else.
Hans-Hermann Hoppe
#78. The strength of the Constitution lies entirely in the determination of each citizen to defend it. Only if every single citizen feels duty bound to do his share in this defense are the constitutional rights secure.
Albert Einstein
#79. No one can define or measure justice, democracy, security, freedom, truth, or love. No one can define or measure any value. But if no one speaks up for them, if systems aren't designed to produce them, if we don't speak about them and point toward their presence or absence, they will cease to exist.
Donella Meadows
#80. Words like 'freedom', 'justice' and 'democracy' are not common concepts; on the contrary, they are rare. People are not born knowing what these are. It takes enormous, and above all, individual effort to arrive at the respect for other people that these words imply.
James A. Baldwin
#81. In the modern food landscape, the Krafts, Monsantos, and Archer Daniels Midlands are standing in the way of food democracy.
Brian Halweil
#82. We are in this business, whether it be intelligence or the government, to protect freedom, democracy and liberty, not to violate that.
John O. Brennan
#83. Honoring the sacrifices many have made for our country in the name of freedom and democracy is the very foundation of Veterans Day.
Charles B. Rangel
#84. The Western world, the free world, loses what it cherishes most, and that is freedom and liberty we've seen for a couple of hundred years in this grand experiment that we call democracy.
Tommy Franks
#85. Self-proclaimed saviors and other outliers come and go throughout our political history. Occasionally, they're successful; most times, they're not. But the system has rebalanced toward the basic principles of tolerance, freedom and democracy that were set forth by the Founders.
David Ignatius
#86. On Jan. 30, millions of Iraqis will cast ballots in the country's first fair and free election in decades, marking continued progress in Iraq's transition toward a country built on the pillars of democracy and freedom for all.
Jim Gerlach
#87. The few Americans he had encountered in his lifetime had all seemed flat to him, as if freedom weakened one's capacity for intense emotion by demanding too little of it.
G. Willow Wilson
#88. The great gift of American democracy is freedom to think, act, and carry out our lives in a manner that imbues meaning not only to our own life but enhances other people's lives through our everyday actions.
Kilroy J. Oldster
#89. Freedom of the press is the staff of life, for any vital democracy.
Wendell Willkie
#90. America's greatest contribution to the world is its concept of democracy, its concept of freedom, freedom of action, freedom of speech, and freedom of thought.
Benazir Bhutto
#91. Ultimately, freedom and democracy are stronger than fear and tyranny.
Gijs De Vries
#92. Freedom of the press is the mortar that binds together the bricks of democracy
and it is also the open window embedded in those bricks.
Shashi Tharoor
#93. The well being of democracies regardless of their type and status is dependent on one small technical detail: The right to vote. Everything else is secondary.
Jose Ortega Y Gasset
#94. Our mission is not to impose our peculiar institutions upon other nations by physical force or diplomatic treachery but rather by internal peace and prosperity to solve the problem of self-government and reconcile democratic freedom with national stability.
Benjamin Harrison
#95. Governments, including free and democratic governments, are not really friendly to freedom and democracy. They abhor any rule of law that limits their powers and penchant for social engineering.
George Jonas
#96. Our democracy is of no use to those who have not been educated to it. Freedom is not of use to those who do not know how to employ it.
Sylvia Plath
#97. Democracy is not freedom. Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for lunch.
Andrew Napolitano
#98. For us to become a nation, everyone - including Arabs, Druze, ultra-Orthodox and new immigrants - must feel that they belong. Their success is extremely important to us. If they succeed, they will come to understand the advantages of democracy and freedom.
Stef Wertheimer
#99. The only way to ensure democracy functions correctly is to question its governance constantly. Fail to do so and you may awake to find yourself living in a police state.
Stewart Stafford
#100. We're living in an age in which everything is allowed, and democracy is being devoured and destroyed by that limitless freedom.
Paulo Coelho
