Democracies Quotes

Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.
Aristotle

Decline, Degenerate, Republics

Democracies have to be careful that they do not become so process-driven.
Hillary Clinton

Become, Careful

The United States is unusual among the industrial democracies in the rigidity of the system of ideological control - 'indoctrination,' we might say - exercised through the mass media.
Noam Chomsky

Control, Through, Might

The genius of democracies is seen not only in the great number of new words introduced but even more in the new ideas they express.
Alexis de Tocqueville

Great, Words, Genius

Democracies are indeed slow to make war, but once embarked upon a martial venture are equally slow to make peace and reluctant to make a tolerable, rather than a vindictive, peace.
Reinhold Niebuhr

Peace, War, Rather

Iraq is just a symbol of the attitude of western democracies to the rest of the world.
Harold Pinter

Attitude, Rest, Iraq

The way people in democracies think of the government as something different from themselves is a real handicap. And, of course, sometimes the government confirms their opinion.
Lewis Mumford

Government, Real, Different

It is a besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion for law. This is the usual form in which masses of men exhibit their tyranny.
James F. Cooper

Men, Law, Opinion

My husband is not American. He was born in Brazil, where he grew up under a filthy, corrupt dictatorship. In his twenties, he moved to Europe, where he lived for a while under various socialist democracies. He spent a few years on a kibbutz in Israel, living out a utopian experiment in communal existence.
Elizabeth Gilbert

Husband, Living, American

Unlike despotisms, modern democracies are not supposed promiscuously to accumulate property and then charge their taxpayers to maintain it. But that is what they do. Governments are always trying to extend their responsibilities and their estates, and it is very hard for parliaments to reign them in.
James Buchan

Hard, Trying, Modern

Most liberal democracies don't try to figure out what the truth is.
Alan Dershowitz

Truth, Try, Liberal

Asia's governments come in two broad varieties: young, fragile democracies - and older, fragile authoritarian regimes.
Paul Samuelson

Two, Young, Older

As in Athens, the right to participate was restricted to men, just as it was also in all later democracies and republics until the twentieth century.
Robert A. Dahl

Men, Until, Later

In America, unlike England, unlike Israel, unlike Japan, other democracies, we have elections that have staggered terms.
Barney Frank

America, Israel, Elections

I hate war... for the dictatorships it puts in the place of democracies, and for the starvation that stalks after it.
Harry Emerson Fosdick

War, Hate, After

To balance China, the democracies will need new friends - and India with its fast-growing economy, youthful population, and democratic politics seems the obvious candidate.
David Frum

Politics, Friends, Balance

Democracies, unlike dictatorships, are forgiving and generous, but they cannot survive unless they fight.
Jalal Talabani

Fight, Cannot, Unless

Why should the Negroes ever fight against the only nations of the world where racial discrimination is prohibited, and where the people can live freely? Never! I can assure you, they will never fight against either the Soviet Union or the peoples' democracies.
Paul Robeson

Live, Fight, Why

In emerging democracies like Russia, in authoritarian states like Iran or even Yugoslavia, journalists play a vital role in civil society. In fact, they form the very basis of those new democracies and civil societies.
Christiane Amanpour

Society, Play, Fact

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

Freedom, Democracy, Dangerous

The United States can't impose democracies. We can't impose our will. The Russians found that out in Afghanistan.
Chuck Hagel

Found, United, Russians

The tendency of democracies is, in all things, to mediocrity.
James F. Cooper

Mediocrity, Tendency

First of all, the world criticizes American foreign policy because Americans criticize American foreign policy. We shouldn't be surprised about that. Criticizing government is a God-given right - at least in democracies.
Michael Mandelbaum

Government, American, Criticize

Half a world away nations that once lived under oppression and tyranny are now budding democracies due in large part to America 's leadership and the sacrifices of our military.
Bob Riley

Leadership, America, Away

The problem with the United Nations is that while democracy within nations is the best available form of government, democracy among nations can be a moral disaster - especially if some nations are not democracies.
Jonah Goldberg

Best, Government, Democracy

I do not believe that the values which the Western democracies consider essential to civilization can survive in a world rent by the international anarchy of nationalism and the economic anarchy of competitive enterprise.
Arthur Henderson

Values, Economic, Survive

In the past week it has become clear that the vote on the final healthcare bill will be very close. I take this vote with the utmost seriousness. I am quite aware of the historic fight that has lasted the better part of the last century to bring America in line with other modern democracies in providing single payer health care.
Dennis Kucinich

Health, Care, Past

The purpose cannot be creating self-styled democracies, but rather encouraging steps that are conducive to establishing democratic rule at universal standards. Obviously, this would be a formidable journey.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Cannot, Rather, Purpose

Democracies are poor breeding grounds for terrorism and war.
Adam Schiff

War, Poor, Terrorism

Only two countries in this hemisphere are not democratic, but many countries in both Central and South America, and in the Caribbean, are really fragile democracies.
Warren Christopher

Two, America, Both

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