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#democracy

Read through the most famous quotes by topic #democracy




I was astonished, bewildered. This was America, a country where, whatever its faults, people could speak, write, assemble, demonstrate without fear. It was in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. We were a democracy... But I knew it wasn't a dream; there was a painful lump on the side of my head... The state and its police were not neutral referees in a society of contending interests. They were on the side of the rich and powerful. Free speech? Try it and the police will be there with their horses, their clubs, their guns, to stop you. From that moment on, I was no longer a liberal, a believer in the self-correcting character of American democracy. I was a radical, believing that something fundamental was wrong in this country--not just the existence of poverty amidst great wealth, not just the horrible treatment of black people, but something rotten at the root. The situation required not just a new president or new laws, but an uprooting of the old order, the introduction of a new kind of society--cooperative, peaceful, egalitarian. ↗


— Howard Zinn


#authoritarianism #bill-of-rights #constitution #democracy #egalitarianism

secrecy is the freedom tyrants dream of ↗


— Bill Moyers


#dreams

When occasions present themselves in which the interests of the people are at variance with their inclinations, it is the duty of the persons whom they have appointed to be the guardians of those interests to withstand the temporary delusion in order to give them time and opportunity for more cool and sedate reflection. Instances might be cited in which a conduct of this kind has saved the people from very fatal consequences of their own mistakes, and has procured lasting monuments of their gratitude to the men who had courage and magnanimity enough to serve them at the peril of their displeasure. ↗


— Alexander Hamilton


#government-leadership #courage

There are many countries but few nations. We are committed to building Nigeria into a most desirable nation to live ↗


— Fela Durotoye


#democracy #leadership #leadership-development #nations #nigeria

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


#elite #elitism #elitist #voter #voting

Our safety, our liberty, depends upon preserving the Constitution of the United States as our fathers made it inviolate. The people of the United States are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution. ↗


— Abraham Lincoln


#government #judicial-power #republicanism #separation-of-powers #men

democracy is about the conditions that make it possible for ordinary people to better their lives by becoming political beings and by making power responsive to their hopes and needs. What is at stake in democratic politics is whether ordinary men and women can recognize that their concerns are best protected and cultivated under a regime whose actions are governed by principles of commonality, equality, and fairness, a regime in which taking part in politics becomes a way of staking out and sharing in a common life and its forms of self-fulfillment. Democracy is not about bowling together but about managing together those powers that immediately and significantly affect the lives and circumstances of others and one’s self. ↗


— Sheldon S. Wolin


#power #equality

it is the people who control the Government, not the Government the people. ↗


— Winston Churchill


#democracy

Democracy is the worship of jackals by jackasses. ↗


— H.L. Mencken


#democracy

Listening to the Gospel on Palm Sunday, it struck me that many people criticise Pontius Pilate for his role in the affair while letting the multitude go scot free. Pilate did what little he could to dissuade them from the extremely unpleasant course of action on which they were set, but the multitude kept shouting for a crucifixion. Pilate could not have done more without provoking a riot. The crucifixion when it happened was a victory for direct democracy against the effete, liberal paternalism of Pilate. If I am right, and the crucifixion be seen as an early victory for the principle of direct democracy, then it must follow...that good men should struggle to confound and frustrate the multitude whenever possible. ↗


— Auberon Waugh


#direct-democracy #men






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