Quotes & Sayings About Democracy Day

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

Being human means throwing your whole life on the scales of destiny when need be, all the while rejoicing in every sunny day and every beautiful cloud. — Rosa Luxemburg

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

[T]he superstitions to be feared in the present day are much less religious than political; and of all the forms of idolatry I know none more irrational and ignoble than this blind worship of mere numbers. - William Lecky, Democracy and Liberty — Bryan Caplan

i believe in the freedom of state where every people have to right develop their culture and maintain the democracy while two things are very essential justice and equality - Long Live Pakistan and Happy Independence Day — Avinash Advani

Ultimately our problems will not be solved by the right man (or woman) in the White House. It simply doesn't work that way. We live in a democracy, a representative form of government, where it's as much if not more our responsibility to love and take care of our neighbors than our politician's responsibility. Real and lasting change comes from knowing and loving the folks who live in the houses that sit next to ours rather than saving all of our longing and hope for the voting booth...Our ultimate hope is not in politicians or powers or governments, but in a day coming when all things will be made right. And our ultimate concern isn't success but faithfulness. — Derek Webb

I was right outside the NSA [on 9/11], so I remember the tension on that day. I remember hearing on the radio, 'the plane's hitting,' and I remember thinking my grandfather, who worked for the FBI at the time, was in the Pentagon when the plane hit it ... I take the threat of terrorism seriously, and I think we all do. And I think it's really disingenuous for the government to invoke and sort-of scandalize our memories to sort-of exploit the national trauma that we all suffered together and worked so hard to come through
and to justify programs that have never been shown to keep us safe, but cost us liberties and freedoms that we don't need to give up, and that our Constitution says we should not give up. — Edward Snowden

Quote of the day:Quote of the day: A democracy which makes or even effectively prepares for modern, scientific war must necessarily cease to be democratic. No country can be really well prepared for modern war unless it is governed by a tyrant, at the head of a highly trained and perfectly obedient bureaucracy.
Aldous Huxley — Aldous Huxley

The Constitution empowers the people to resolve our day's most contentious issues. When judges forget this basic truth, they do a disservice to our democracy and to our constitution. — Mike DeWine

Here's to the day when the complete works of Leon Trotsky are published and widely distributed in the Soviet Union. On that day the USSR will have achieved democracy! — C. Wright Mills

When you fight, you don't fight for abstract values like the flag, or the nation, or democracy. You fight for your buddy. You fight to keep him alive, and he fights to keep you alive, and you go on that way, day after day, battle after battle. And when one of your buddies dies, something inside you dies as well. But you go on. You fight, so that his death isn't meaningless, his sacrifice isn't for nothing. — Richard Marcinko

[Hamas] thought that if you go to elections you become a democrat for the rest of your life. They think that democracy is limited to one day in four years. — Shimon Peres

In remembering those who lost their lives in the London attacks and the September 11th attacks we continue our commitment to fighting for freedom, democracy and justice. — Doc Hastings

And so, when the chips are down, I must say, though not without a sense of repugnance, that if you wish to show your belief in democracy, you also have to do so when you are in the minority, convinced both intellectually and, not least, in your innermost self, that the majority, in the name of democracy, is crushing everything you stand for and that means something to you, indeed, all that gives you the strength to endure, well, that gives a kind of meaning to your life, something that transcends your own fortuitous lot, one might say. When the heralds of democracy roar, triumphantly bawling out their vulgar victories day after day so that it really makes you suffer, as in my own case, you still have to accept it; I will not let anything else be said about me, he thought. — Dag Solstad

How, then,' I hear you ask, 'shall I attain my end, whether it be Christian love, socialism, or American democracy?' Your Christian love and your socialism and your American democracy are what you do each day, your manner of thinking each hour, of embracing your life companion and loving your child; they are your attitude of social responsibility towards your work, and your determination not to become like the crushers of life you so hate. — Wilhelm Reich

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

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

For the normative self-understanding of modernity, Christianity has functioned as more than just a precursor or catalyst. Universalistic egalitarianism, from which sprang the ideals of freedom and a collective life in solidarity, the autonomous conduct of life and emancipation, the individual morality of conscience, human rights and democracy, is the direct legacy of the Judaic ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of love. This legacy, substantially unchanged, has been the object of a continual critical reappropriation and reinterpretation. Up to this very day there is no alternative to it. And in light of the current challenges of a post-national constellation, we must draw sustenance now, as in the past, from this substance. Everything else is idle postmodern talk. — Jurgen Habermas

People keep saying someone should fix the system, the
system is corrupt. What they don't get is; they are the system. It's just like how people hate
McDonald's and Coca Cola. People say they are evil corporations, terrorists and ruining the
health of the future but then, how are these brands live and running all over the world,
making billions of dollars of profit every day? People still buy it, that's how. The majority of
the world is people who know something is bad for them but keep consuming it. If it's so
bad for you, why buy it? If the system is so bad, why do they vote for it? It's the people who
need to change not the leaders. — Thisuri Wanniarachchi

My dear, it is very nice here, every day two or three persons are stabbed by soldiers in the city; there are daily arrests, but apart from these it is pretty gay.. — Rosa Luxemburg

A day will come when our children and grandchildren will look back and they'll ask one of two questions. Either they will ask: "what in God's name were they doing?" or they may look back and say: "how did they find the uncommon moral courage to rise above politics and redeem the promise of American democracy?" — Al Gore

Similarly, Alexis de Tocqueville, the famous French political philosopher and sociologist, in his classic Democracy in America, written after a lengthy visit in the 1830s, saw equality, not majority rule, as the outstanding characteristic of America. "In America," he wrote, the aristocratic element has always been feeble from its birth; and if at the present day it is not actually destroyed, it is at any rate so completely disabled, that we can scarcely assign to it any degree of influence on the course of affairs. The — Milton Friedman

This shriveled conception of democracy has solid roots. The founding fathers were much concerned about the hazards of democracy. In the debates of the Constitutional Convention, the main framer, James Madison, warned of these hazards. Naturally taking England as his model, he observed that "in England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would soon take place," undermining the right to property. To ward off such injustice, "our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation," arranging voting patterns and checks and balances so as "to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority," a prime task of decent government.19 — Noam Chomsky

You can't afford to hate politics. The politics of this country is democracy. Democracy is by the people, of the people and for the people. The day people stop taking active part in the politics of this country, democracy will not survive. — Arvind Kejriwal

The other day, someone told me the difference between a democracy and a people's democracy. It's the same difference between a jacket and a straitjacket. — Ronald Reagan

The day of democracy is past," he said. "Past for ever. That day began with the bowmen of Crecy, it ended when marching infantry, when common men in masses ceased to win the battles of the world, when costly cannon, great ironclads, and strategic railways became the means of power. To-day is the day of wealth. Wealth now is power as it never was power before - it commands earth and sea and sky. All power is for those who can handle wealth ... — H.G.Wells

Christianity would not have lasted 2,000 years if the majority of bishops and priests failed to believe in Christ. American democracy would not have lasted almost 250 years if the majority of presidents and congressmen failed to believe in human rights. The modern economic system would not have lasted a single day if the majority of investors and bankers failed to believe in capitalism. — Yuval Noah Harari

Democracy is talking itself to death. The people do not know what they want; they do not know what is the best for them. There is too much foolishness, too much lost motion. I have stopped the talk and the nonsense. I am a man of action. Democracy is beautiful in theory; in practice it is a fallacy. You in America will see that some day. — Benito Mussolini

My generation has not seen one single day of peace, and my dream is for my children and the children of all Colombians to have the change to see it. I hope the guerrilla understands that the time has come to leave this 50-year confrontation behind; that the time has come to change from bullets to votes, from weapons to argumentations; that the time has come for them to continue their struggle, but within democracy. — Juan Manuel Santos

As the leader of Southeast Asia's oldest democracy, I am always keen to share our experiences. In the half-century since independence, we have found that steady reform is the best way to secure lasting stability. It is a process that continues in Malaysia to this day. — Najib Razak

Time is the ultimate democracy. Rich and poor, young and old, male and female: all have 24 hours in a day and 7 days in a week. — Elizabeth Grace Saunders

There is an urgent need to-day for the citizens of a democracy to think well. It is not enough to have freedom of the Press and parliamentary institutions. Our difficulties are due partly to our own stupidity, partly to the exploitation of that stupidity, and partly to our own prejudices and personal desires. — Susan Stebbing

America's Veterans have served their country with the belief that democracy and freedom are ideals to be upheld around the world. — John Doolittle

Sometimes when I'm in the midst of all this, I can hear my mother saying, 'Democracy is just something you must do every day, like brushing your teeth. — Gloria Steinem

Just the other day the AP wire had a story about a man from Arkansas who entered some kind of contest and won a two-week vacation
all expenses paid
wherever he wanted to go. Any place in the world: Mongolia, Easter Island, the Turkish Riviera ... but his choice was Salt Lake City, and that's where he went. Is this man a registered voter? Has he come to grips with the issues? Has he bathed in the blood of the lamb? — Hunter S. Thompson

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is a time to honor the greatest champion of racial equality who taught a nation - through compassion and courage - about democracy, nonviolence and racial justice. — Mark Pryor

I absolutely refuse to associate myself with anyone who cannot discern the essential night-and-day difference between theocratic fascism and liberal secular democracy, even less do I want to engage with those who are incapable of recognizing the basic moral distinction between premeditated mass murder and unintentional killing. — Christopher Hitchens

It'd make a wonderful change to have the leader of a pluralist democracy who acted on that, who told people just how tough things are going to be, just what's going to have to be done - and, maybe, ran all the risks on the side of honesty, rather than spinning stories and trying to win the headlines every day. — Chris Patten

It is difficult for the ordinary voter to come to grips with the notion that a truly evil man, a truthless monster with the brains of a king rat and the soul of a cockroach, is about to be sworn in as the president of the United States for the next four years ... And he will bring his gang in with him, a mean network of lawyers and salesmen and pimps who will loot the national treasury, warp the laws, mock the rules and stay awake 22 hours a day looking for at least one reason to declare war, officially, on some hapless tribe in the Sahara or heathen fanatic like the Ayatollah Khomeini. — Hunter S. Thompson

Democracy is a wonderful thing, Mr Burnham,' he said wistfully. 'It is a marvellous tamasha that keeps the common people busy so that men like ourselves can take care of all matters of importance. I hope one day India will also be able to enjoy these advantages - and China too, of course. — Amitav Ghosh

Democracy ... is not something that occurs overnight. It is not a gift delivered on a golden tray. Democracy is a long process of fighting, challenging accepted ideas, and perpetually striving for freedom. Like a seed that has to be watered every day to become a flower, democracy needs constant attention and care. — Shirin Ebadi

I venture the challenging statement that if American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

What with the political monopoly, the Cheka and the Red Army, all that now existed of the 'Commune-State' of our dreams was a theoretical myth. The war, the internal measures against counterrevolution, and the famine (which had created a bureaucratic rationing apparatus) had killed off Soviet democracy. How could it revive, and when? The Party lived in the certain knowledge that the slightest relaxation of its authority would give day to reaction. — Victor Serge

This will be the day when we shall bring into full realization the dream of American democracy
a dream yet unfulfilled. A dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely distributed; a dream of a land where men will not take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few ... — Martin Luther King Jr.

Vote?" Matthew said, incredulous. "Since when did we vote in this family?" "Since Marcus took over the Knights of Lazarus," Gallowglass replied, drawing a silver lighter from his pocket. "We've been choking on democracy since the day you left. — Deborah Harkness

Down to the present day the luminous image of democracy has often served as a pretext for the most undemocratic actions. — Randal Marlin

Ending torture and tyranny in Iraq was not a mistake. Supporting democracy in Iraq is not a mistake. Helping the long-suffering Muslims of Iraq who now seek to live democratically is not a mistake. In the long, long history of the Middle East, this breakthrough may one day be ranked as a dramatic turning point in regional history. — Michael Novak

Photography can still be used to champion activism and change. I believe this, even while standing in the cool winds of postmodernism ... Postmodernism looked radical, but it wasn't. As a movement it was profoundly liberal and became a victim of itself. Precisely at this historical moment, when multicultural democracy is the order of the day, photography can be used as a powerful weapon toward instituting political and cultural change. I for one will continue to work toward this end. — Carrie Mae Weems

[On Brazil:] In our country everything is weakening. The money is weak. Democracy is weak and the politicians are very weak. Everything that is weak dies one day. — Carolina Maria De Jesus

The Greeks had invented democracy, built the Acropolis and called it a day. — David Sedaris

Day by day, it's worse for my people, especially for the women. And that's why, because of all of these main reasons, we say this is the mockery of democracy and mockery of War on Terror. — Malalai Joya

I don't find any difference between Islam and Islamic fundamentalists. I believe religion is the root, and from the root fundamentalism grows as a poisonous stem. If we remove fundamentalism and keep religion, then one day or another fundamentalism will grow again. I need to say that because some liberals always defend Islam and blame fundamentalists for creating problems. But Islam itself oppresses women. Islam itself doesn't permit democracy and it violates human rights. — Taslima Nasrin

I pledge to do what must be done to get everyone before they get you, America. Free country or no free country, democracy or no democracy - at the end of the day, say what you want . . . You have to admit this: you're American. Naked displays of raw proactive bully-power put a tingling feeling in your undershorts. You like to see the bad guys get it. Might — Cintra Wilson

It's not just tougher out there. It's become a situation where the contest is how much you can destroy the system, rather than how much you can make it work. It makes no difference if you have a 'D' or an 'R' after your name. There's no sense that this is about democracy, and after the election you have to work together, and knit the country together. The people in the game now just think to the first Tuesday in November, and not a day beyond it. — Peter Hart

The leading student of business propaganda, Australian social scientist Alex Carey, argues persuasively that the 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy. — Noam Chomsky

Democracy is just something you must do every day, like brushing you teeth. — Gloria Steinem

The seasick passenger on an ocean liner detests the good sailor who stalks past him 265 times a day grandly smoking a large, greasy cigar. In precisely the same way the democrat hates the man who is having a better time in the world. This is the origin of democracy. It is also the origin of Puritanism. — H.L. Mencken

For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence
on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations. Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War, in short, with a war-time discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match. — John F. Kennedy

Alexis de Tocqueville took note of this fact in his Democracy in America, published in 1835: "In America," he wrote, "parties do not write books to combat each other's opinions, but pamphlets, which are circulated for a day with incredible rapidity and then expire."25 And he referred to both newspapers and pamphlets when he observed, "the invention of firearms equalized the vassal and the noble on the field of battle; the art of printing opened the same resources to the minds of all classes; the post brought knowledge alike to the door of the cottage and to the gate of the palace." 26 — Neil Postman

Reigning doctrines are often called a "double standard".The term is misleading.It is more accurate to describe them as a single standard,clear and unmistakable,the standard that Adam Smith called the "vile maxim of the masters of mankind: ...All for ourselves,and nothing for other people." Much has changed since his day,but the vile maxim flourishes. — Noam Chomsky

In Israel, free men and women are every day demonstrating the power of courage and faith. Back in 1948 when Isreal was founded, pundits claimed the new country could never survive. Today, no one questions that. Israel is a land of stability and democracy in a region of tyranny and unrest. — Ronald Reagan

Had he lived some centuries ago, in the brightly coloured civilizations of the past, he would have had a definite status, his rank and his income would have corresponded. But in his day the angel of Democracy had arisen, enshadowing the classes with leathern wings, and proclaiming, "All men are equal--all men, that is to say, who possess umbrellas... — E. M. Forster

The democracy of to-day hold the liberty of one man to be absolutely nothing when in conflict with another man's right of property...
This is a world of compensations; and he would -be- no slave must consent to -have- no slave. Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.
All honor to Jefferson - to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so embalm it there, that to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and oppression. Your obedient Servant,
[Abraham Lincoln]
April 6, 1859, in a letter to MA State Rep Henry L. Pierce
Springfield, Ill. — Abraham Lincoln

Francie, huddled with other children of her kind, learned more that first day than she realized. She learned of the class system of a great Democracy. — Betty Smith

Democracy should be practiced not every six years, but every day. — Gael Garcia Bernal

We believe in equality for all, and privileges for none. This is a belief that each American regardless of background has equal standing in the public forum, all of us. Because we believe this idea so firmly, we are an inclusive, rather than an exclusive party. Let everybody come. — Barbara Jordan

I am more convinced than ever that a lively two party system is essential to our democracy. — Stockwell Day

For the newspaper is in all literalness the bible of democracy, the book out of which a people determines its conduct. It is the only serious book most people read. It is the only book they read every day. — Walter Lippmann

What I hear every day on talk radio is America's lack of education - and I don't mean lack of college degrees. I mean lack of the basic art of democracy, the ability to seek the great truths that can come only by synthesizing the small truths possessed by each of us. — Donella Meadows

Let's not give the electoral process so much importance. We have to be cynical about it. Let's give importance to the real democracy that's constructed on a day-to-day basis. That's my hopeful perspective on it. — Gael Garcia Bernal

Democracy and religion stand or fall together. Where democracy has been destroyed, religion has been doomed. Where religion has been trampled down, democracy has ceased to exist ... Tyrants have come and have had their day and then have passed while religion has survived them all. — Herbert H. Lehman

If the great Western experiment fails and we end up living in totalitarian war-on-terrorism states, one day someone's going to say, 'Well democracy doesn't work because they had to give it up'. — Martin Firrell

Every democracy is constructed day-to-day. And the electoral process reduces and minimalizes every single aspect of human complexity. We're putting it into pamphlets. We're doing a publicity show. We're becoming symbols. — Gael Garcia Bernal

It is a paradox that far too few Americans participate in the wonderful ritual of democracy that we call Election Day. — Brad Henry

In a democracy the responsibility for the Government's economic policies, which so affect the economy, normally rests with the elected representative of the people: in our case, with the President and the Congress. If these two follow economic policies inimical to the general welfare, they are accountable to the people for their actions on election day. With Federal Reserve independence, however, a body of men exist who control one of the most powerful levers moving the economy and who are responsible to no one. — Wright Patman

The 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance. The growth of democracy; the growth of corporate power; and the growth of corporate propaganda against democracy. — Alex Carey

Note, to-day, an instructive, curious spectacle and conflict. Science, (twin, in its fields, of Democracy in its) - Science, testing absolutely all thoughts, all works, has already burst well upon the world - a sun, mounting, most illuminating, most glorious - surely never again to set. But against it, deeply entrench'd, holding possession, yet remains, (not only through the churches and schools, but by imaginative literature, and unregenerate poetry,) the fossil theology of the mythic-materialistic, superstitious, untaught and credulous, fable-loving, primitive ages of humanity. — Walt Whitman

When they become slaves to thoughts that pull them down they fall into another kind of slavery and no one can emancipate them from such bondage as that except themselves - not even a Lincoln.
I say this because there is an increasing tendency among the youth of both races to assume that a system of government will unload them of all responsibilities for the care of aged parents, for sicknesses and accidents - often due to their own carelessness and neglect - and for their periods of unemployment, no matter how much their condition is due to laziness or failure to co-operate with others. I see this every day. 'Let the government do it,' they say, ignoring the fact that, in a democracy, they themselves help pay for the government's disbursements. It looks to me at this time as if they wish to declare not their independence, but their dependence upon the government from the cradle to the grave. — Thomas Calhoun Walker

The truth is that the materialistic paternalism of the present day, if allowed to go on unchecked, will rapidly make of America one huge "Main Street," where spiritual adventure will be discouraged and democracy will be regarded as consisting in the reduction of all mankind to the proportions of the narrowest and least gifted of the citizens. God grant that there may come a reaction, and that the great principles of Anglo-Saxon liberty may be rediscovered before it is too late! — John Gresham Machen

The transition from dictatorship to democracy is always very difficult, and if you read a history of any country that went through this, it wasn't easy. And, you know, you don't end dictatorship one day and next day you have fully fledged democracy. — Wael Ghonim

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

At daybreak on the first day, thousands of Cambodians are already calmly waiting outside my polling station. They squat on the ground, silent and patient. We didn't expect this at all. We thought they would fail to understand how democracy works. We thought they would be afraid of the Khmer Rouge. We thought they would passively accept their fate. We were wrong. — Heidi Postlewait

Institutions work this way. A son is murdered by the police, and nothing is done. The institutions send the victim's family on a merry-go-round, going from one agency to another, until they wear out and give up. this is a very effective way to beat down poor and oppressed people, who do not have the time to prosecute their cases. Time is money to poor people. To go to Sacramento means loss of a day's pay - often a loss of job. If this is a democracy, obviously it is a bourgeois democracy limited to the middle and upper classes. Only they can afford to participate in it. — Huey Newton

Democracy requires active participation, and sooner or later someone 'offers' to take all the difficult decision-making away from you and your hectic life. But the darknet throws those decisions back onto you. It hard-codes democracy into the DNA of civilization. You upvote and downvote many times a day on things that directly affect your life and the lives of people around you - not just once every few years on things you haven't got a chance in hell of affecting. — Daniel Suarez

The reactionary percentage of the electorate in these United States has been relatively constant since McCarthy's day; I'd estimate it as hovering around 30 percent. A minority, but one never all that enamored of the niceties of democracy - they see themselves as fighting for the survival of civilization, after all. — Rick Perlstein

What we need, we are told every day, is more and better leadership. But what this demand involves is a closer and closer approximation to fascism. The fascists alone have evolved an efficient form of leadership: efficient leadership is fascism. — Herbert Read

What good shall I do this day? — Benjamin Franklin

As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. — H.L. Mencken

As heirs to a legacy more than two centuries old, it is understandable why present-day Americans would take their own democracy for granted. A president freely chosen from a wide-open field of two men every four years; a Congress with a 99% incumbency rate; a Supreme Court comprised of nine politically appointed judges whose only oversight is the icy scythe of Death
all these reveal a system fully capable of maintaining itself. But our perfect democracy, which neither needs nor particularly wants voters, is a rarity. It is important to remember there still exist other forms of government in the world today, and that dozens of foreign countries still long for a democracy such as ours to be imposed on them. — Jon Stewart

This country has always been run by elite, and it's an elitist democracy. And that's not a radical concept. It's elitist democracy. When people talk about democracy, they don't talk - really talk about participatory democracy, until the point that we get us at Election Day. — Danny Glover

There's got to be more to life than just living," Foyle said to the robot.
"Then find it for yourself, sir. Don't ask the world to stop moving because you have doubts."
"Why can't we all move forward together?"
"Because you're all different. You're not lemmings. Some must lead, and hope that the rest will follow."
"Who leads?"
"The men who must ... driven men, compelled men."
"Freak men."
"You're all freaks, sir. But you always have been freaks. Life is a freak. That's its hope and glory."
"Thank you very much."
"My pleasure, sir."
"You've saved the day."
"Always a lovely day somewhere, sir," the robot beamed. Then it fizzed, jangled, and collapsed. — Alfred Bester

Therefore, until the day I die, I am going to do what I can, regardless of the cost to me, to try to stop this awful corruption that is destroying our beloved democracy. — John Jay Hooker

We need to get beyond the politics of the moment, the deficit of the hour, the military count of the day, the numbers that rarely shape events. Our long-term interests must be in people and in the values of democracy and individual liberty. — Bill Bradley

Why are we so confused about what police really do? The obvious reason is that in the popular culture of the last fifty years or so, police have become almost obsessive objects of imaginative identification in popular culture. It has come to the point that it's not at all unusual for a citizen in a contemporary industrialized democracy to spend several hours a day reading books, watching movies, or viewing TV shows that invite them to look at the world from a police point of view, and to vicariously participate in their exploits. And these imaginary police do, indeed, spend almost all of their time fighting violent crime, or dealing with its consequences. — David Graeber

Once a man has tasted freedom he will never be content to be a slave. That is why I believe that this frightfulness we see everywhere today is only temporary. Tomorrow will be better for as long as America keeps alive the ideals of freedom and a better life. All men will want to be free and share our way of life. There must be so much that I should have said, but haven't. What I will say now is just what most of us are probably thinking every day. I thank God and America for the right to live and raise my family under the flag of tolerance, democracy and freedom. — Walt Disney Company

In a wild and diverse democracy each of us should be trying to talk to lots and lots and lots of people outside of our own kind of comfort zone and community, and that injunction goes even further for political leaders. They should talk to everyone, they should listen to everyone, and at the end of the day they should have a mind of their own. — Bill Ayers

Remember, there are two things that keep us oppressed: them and us. We are half of the equation. There will not be a magic day when we wake up and it's now OK to express ourselves publicly. We must make that day ourselves, by speaking out publicly
first in small numbers, then in greater numbers, until it's simply the way things are and no one thinks twice. Never doubt that we will create this world, because, my friends, we are fortunate to live in a democracy, and in a democracy, we decide what's possible. — Tammy Baldwin

Men in western governments who were themselves are often modern men, did not understand that freedom without chaos is not a magic formula which can be implanted anywhere. Rather, being modern men, it was their view that, because human race had evolved to a certain level by some such year as 1950, democracy could be planted anywhere from the outside. They had carefully closed their eyes to the fact that freedom without chaos had come forth from a Christian base. They did not understand that freedom without chaos could not be separated from its roots. ( ... ) Many countries where democracy has been imposed from the outside or from top downward, authoritarianism has increasingly become the rule of the day — Francis A. Schaeffer

Talk about an ideal democracy! In the realm of time there is no aristocracy of wealth, and no aristocracy of intellect. Genius is never rewarded by even an extra hour a day. And there is no punishment. Waste your infinitely precious commodity as much as you will, and the supply will never be withheld from you. No mysterious power will say: - "This man is a fool, if not a knave. He does not deserve time; he shall be cut off at the meter." It is more certain than consols, and payment of income is not affected by Sundays. Moreover, you cannot draw on the future. Impossible to get into debt! You can only waste the passing moment. You cannot waste to-morrow; it is kept for you. You cannot waste the next hour; it is kept for you — Arnold Bennett

Journalism is one of the devices whereby industrial autocracy keeps its control over political democracy; it is the day-by-day, between-elections propaganda, whereby the minds of the people are kept in a state of acquiescence, so that when the crisis of an election comes, they go to the polls and cast their ballots for either one of the two candidates of their exploiters. — Upton Sinclair