It is not enough to merely defend democracy. To defend it may be to lose it; to extend it is to strengthen it. Democracy is not property; it is an idea.
Hubert H. Humphrey

We're not a democracy.
Gore Vidal

Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates.
Gore Vidal

Democracy is supposed to give you the feeling of choice, like Painkiller X and Painkiller Y. But they're both just aspirin.
Gore Vidal

Our form of democracy is bribery, on the highest scale.
Gore Vidal

The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians.
Benjamin Disraeli

There can be no daily democracy without daily citizenship.
Ralph Nader

Once you don't vote your ideals... that has serious undermining affects. It erodes the moral basis of our democracy.
Ralph Nader

I like the noise of democracy.
James Buchanan

The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting.
Charles Bukowski

Democracy is beautiful in theory; in practice it is a fallacy.
Benito Mussolini

In a few decades, the relationship between the environment, resources and conflict may seem almost as obvious as the connection we see today between human rights, democracy and peace.
Wangari Maathai

Few businessmen are capable of being in politics, they don't understand the democratic process, they have neither the tolerance or the depth it takes. Democracy isn't a business.
Malcolm Forbes

The experience of democracy is like the experience of life itself-always changing, infinite in its variety, sometimes turbulent and all the more valuable for having been tested by adversity.
Jimmy Carter

A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but won't cross the street to vote in a national election.
Bill Vaughan

We're going to have to forgive a great deal of the Soviet era debt. There's no question about that. Let's face up to that. We're going to have to put in money if Russia is really going to consolidate a democracy.
Jeffrey Sachs

In the Soviet Union, capitalism triumphed over communism. In this country, capitalism triumphed over democracy.
Fran Lebowitz

American democracy must be a failure because it places the supreme authority in the hands of the poorest and most ignorant part of the society.
Thomas Babington

The greatest blessing of our democracy is freedom. But in the last analysis, our only freedom is the freedom to discipline ourselves.
Bernard Baruch

There is no dignity in wickedness, whether in purple or rags; and hell is a democracy of devils, where all are equals.
Herman Melville