#democracy

I'm fed up with democracy. In a democracy, people vote for the mayors. I wanted to build a city where I will choose the citizens. ↗

— Emir Kusturica

#choose #citizens #city #democracy #fed

Democracy is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people. ↗

— Harry Emerson Fosdick

#conviction #democracy #extraordinary #ordinary #ordinary people

In liberal democracy and anxious anarchy, the traditional classic dance, compact of aristocratic authority and absolute freedom in a necessity of order, has never been so promising as an independent expression as it is today. ↗

— Lincoln Kirstein

#absolute freedom #anarchy #anxious #aristocratic #authority

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

#democracy #difference #equality #liberty #nothing

Violent ideologies speak their own language; core concepts are translated to maintain the system while appearing to support the people. Under carnism, for instance, democracy has become defined as having the freedom to choose among products that sicken our bodies and pollute our planet, rather than the freedom to eat our food and breathe our air without the risk of being poisoned. But violent ideologies are inherently undemocratic, as they rely on deception, secrecy, concentrated power, and coercion--all practices that are incompatible with a free society. While the larger system, or nation, may appear democratic, the violent system within it is not. This is one reason we don't recognize violent ideologies that exist within seemingly democratic systems; we simply aren't thinking to look for them. ↗

— Melanie Joy

#democracy #freedom-of-choice #violent-ideologies #food

What is most important for democracy is not that great fortunes should not exist, but that great fortunes should not remain in the same hands. In that way there are rich men, but they do not form a class. ↗

— Alexis de Tocqueville

#democracy #exist #form #fortunes #great

We see the tendency in the world to criticise democracy and sometimes even to say that authoritarian countries like China are more efficient. That is very short-sighted. China looks efficient only because it can sacrifice most people's rights. This is not something the west should be happy about. ↗

— Ai Weiwei

#authoritarian #be happy #because #china #countries

And for well over a hundred years our politicians, statesmen, and people remembered that this was a republic, not a democracy, and knew what they meant when they made that distinction. ↗

— Robert Welch

#distinction #hundred #knew #made #meant

The idea of democracy has been stripped of it moral imperatives and come to denote hollowness and hypocrisy. ↗

— Paul Wellstone

#come #democracy #hypocrisy #idea #imperatives

Education and democracy have the same goal: the fullest possible development of human capabilities. ↗

— Paul Wellstone

#democracy #development #education #fullest #goal