Great Throughts Treasury

"The great fault of modern democracy - a fault that is common to the capitalist and the socialist - is that it accepts economic wealth as the end of society and the standard of personal happiness." - Christopher Henry Dawson

"In a democracy dissent is an act of faith. Like medicine, the test of its value is not in its taste, but in its effects." - J. W. Fulbright, fully James William Fulbright

"Democracy is not a mere consequence, a certain stage in the development of society. It is the condition on which the survival of productive forces depends." - Wei Jingsheng or Jing-sheng

"Crisis demands dictatorship, centralization, concentration, obedience, and bias. Intercrisis permits concessions toward democracy, decentralization, dispersion, originality, and objectivity." - Harold Dwight Lasswell

"No democracy is born perfect, and none ever gets to be perfect. Yet democracy is superior to authoritarian and totalitarian regimes because, unlike them, democracy is perfectible." - Mario Vargas Llosa, fully Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquis of Vargas Llosa

"In the so-called Western secular democracy… a divorce has been effected between politics and religion, and as a result of this secularization, the society and particularly its politically active elements have ceased to attach much or any importance to morality or ethics." - Abu’l A’la Mawdudi

"Democracy without education is hypocrisy without limitation." - Iskander Mirza, fully Major-General Sahibzada Sayyid Iskander Ali Mirza

"We consider progress as legitimate only when it reinforces, rather than undermines, freedom and democracy." - Eduardo Frei Montalva

"How are we to bring children to the spirit of citizenship and humanity which is postulated by democratic societies? By the actual practice of democracy at school. It is unbelievable that at a time when democratic ideas enter into every phase of life, they should have been so little utilized as instruments of education." - Jean Piaget

"If virtue be the spring of popular government in times of peace, the spring of that government during a revolution is virtue combined with terror: virtue, without which terror is destructive; terror, without which virtue is impotent. Terror is the only justice prompt, severe and inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue; it is less a distinct principle than a natural consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing wants of the country." - Maximilien Robespierre, fully Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre

"The foundation of democracy is the sense of spiritual independence which nerves the individual to stand alone against the powers of this world." -

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

"Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time." -

"The purpose of democracy… is, through many transmigrations, and amid endless ridicules, arguments and ostensible failure, to illustrate, at all hazards, this doctrine or theory that man, properly train’d in sanest, highest freedom, may and must become a law, and series of laws, unto himself." -

"National leaders who find themselves wilting under the withering criticisms by members of the media, would do well not to take such criticism personally but to regard the media as their allies in keeping the government clean and honest, its services efficient and timely, and its commitment to democracy strong and unwavering." - Corazon Aquino

"In a democracy, dissent is an act of faith." -

"What makes the United States special in the history of nations is our commitment to the rule of law and our carefully constructed system of checks and balances. Our national distrust of concentrated power and our devotion to openness and democracy are what have led us as a people to consistently choose good over evil in our collective aspirations." - Al Gore, Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr.,

"Americans often pride themselves on being members of the largest, most enduring, and most successful democracy in the world. Yet their lives, to a great degree, are channeled, shaped, and determined by the decisions of a very few people sitting in the board rooms and executive suites of the giant corporations, over whom they exercise little control." - Edward S. Greenberg

"Self-criticism is the secret weapon of democracy." - Adlai Ewing Stevenson

"Self-criticism is the secret weapon of democracy." -

"Self-criticism is the secret weapon of democracy." -

"All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy." - Alfred Emmanuel Smith

"The task of democracy is to relive mass misery and yet preserve the freedom of the individual." - Alfred North Whitehead

"Democracy arose from men's thinking that if they are equal in any respect, they are equal absolutely." - Aristotle NULL

"The end of democracy is freedom; of oligarchy, wealth; of aristocracy, the maintenance of education and national institutions; of tyranny, the protection of the tyrant." - Aristotle NULL

"The first rule of democracy is to distrust all leaders who begin to believe their own publicity." - Arthur Meier Schlesinger, Jr., born Arthur Bancroft Schlesinger

"A fanatical belief in democracy makes democratic institutions impossible." - Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell

"If one man offers you democracy and another offers you a bag of grain, at what stage of starvation will you prefer the grain to the vote?" - Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell

"Envy is the basis of democracy." - Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell

"The test of democracy is freedom of criticism." - David Ben-Gurion, born David Grün

"Human dignity, economic freedom, individual responsibility, these are the characteristics that distinguish democracy from all other forms devised by man." - Dwight Eisenhower, fully Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower

"In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority." - Edmund Burke

"The long fight to save wild beauty represents democracy at its best. It requires citizens to practice the hardest of virtues - self-restraint." - Edwin Way Teale

"Democracy, the practice of self-government, is a covenant among free men to respect the rights and liberties of their fellows." - Franklin D. Roosevelt, fully Franklin Delano Roosevelt, aka FDR

"Freedom of conscience, of education, of speech, of assembly are among the very fundamentals of democracy and all of them would be nullified should freedom of the press ever be successfully challenged." - Franklin D. Roosevelt, fully Franklin Delano Roosevelt, aka FDR

"Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country." - Franklin D. Roosevelt, fully Franklin Delano Roosevelt, aka FDR

"Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few." - George Bernard Shaw

"Democracy is based on the conviction that people have the moral and intellectual capacity, as well as the inalienable right to govern themselves with reason and justice." - Harry S. Truman

"Democracy is based on the conviction that man has the moral and intellectual capacity, as well as the inalienable right, to govern himself with reason and justice." - Harry S. Truman

"Who are the really disloyal? Those who inflame racial hatreds, who sow religious and class dissensions. those who subvert the Constitution by violating the freedom of the ballot box. Those who make a mockery of majority rule by the use of the filibuster. Those who impair democracy by denying equal educational facilities. Those who frustrate justice by lynch law or by making a farce of jury trials. Those who deny freedom of speech and of the press and of assembly. Those who demand special favors against the interest of the commonwealth. Those who regard public office as a source of private gain. Those who exalt the military over the civil. Those who for selfish and private purposes stir up national antagonisms and expose the world to the ruin of war." - Henry Steele Commager

"If our democracy is to flourish, it must have criticism; if our government is to function it must have dissent." - Henry Steele Commager

"Democracy is not just a counting up of votes – it is a counting up of actions. Without those on the bottom acting out there desires for justice – as the government acts out its needs, and those with power and privilege act out theirs – the scales of democracy will be off. That is why civil disobedience is not just to be tolerated – if we are to have a truly democratic society it is a necessity." - Howard Zinn

"Here in the United States, we are brought up to believe that our nation is different from others, an exception in the world, uniquely moral; that we expand into other lands in order to bring civilization, liberty, democracy. But if you know some history you know that's not true." - Howard Zinn

"Today we all realize that democracy is not a self-perpetuating virus adapted to any body politic - that was the assumption of a previous generation. Democracy as we know to be a special type of organism requiring specific nutriment materials - some economic, some social and cultural." - James Bryant Conant

"Democracy and socialism are means to an end, not the end itself." - Jawaharlal Nehru

"Megatrends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives… From an Industrial Society to an Information Society... From Forced Technology to High Tech/High Tech/High Touch... From a National Economy to a World Economy… From Short Term to Long Term… From Centralization to Decentralization… From Institutional Help to Self-Help… From Representative Democracy to Participatory Democracy… From Hierarchies to Networking… From North to South… From Either/Or to Multiple Option." -

"One of the greatest dangers... of democracy, as of all other forms of government, lies in the sinister interest of the holders of power: it is the danger of class legislation; of government intended for (whether really effecting it or not) the immediate benefit of the dominant class, to the lasting detriment of the whole. And one of the most important questions demanding consideration, in determining the best constitution of a representative government, is how to provide efficacious securities against this evil." - John Stuart Mill

"We can have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." - Louis D. Brandeis, fully Louis Dembitz Brandeis

"What are the American ideals? They are the development of the individual through liberty and the attainment of the common good through democracy and social justice." - Louis D. Brandeis, fully Louis Dembitz Brandeis

"Of the many things we have done to democracy in the past, the worst has been the indignity of taking it for granted." - Max Lerner, fully Maxwell "Max" Alan Lerner, aka Mikhail Lerner