This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Democracy, it must be emphasized, is a practical necessity and not just a philosophic value." - Michael Harrington, fully Edward Michael "Mike" Harrington
"What is needed to make democracy work as it is not now working- to bring into existence in reality a sound conception of democracy? The mass liberal education of the mass electorate. Not just schooling, but an education that involves moral training as well as training of the mind." - Mortimer J. Adler, fully Mortimer Jerome Adler
"Man must understand his universe in order to understand his destiny. Mystery, however, is a very necessary ingredient in our lives. Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis for man’s desire to understand. Who knows what mysteries will be solved in our lifetime, and what new riddles will become the challenge of the new generations? Science has not mastered prophesy. We predict too much for next year yet far too little for the next ten. Responding to challenge is one of democracy’s great strengths. Our successes in space lead us to hope that this strength can be used in the next decade in the solution of many of our planet’s problems." - Neil Armstrong, fully Neil Alden Armstrong
"Politics is the life blood of democracy. To call politics “dirty” is to call democracy “dirty.”" - Nelson Rockefeller, fully Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller
"In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than just ideals to be valued - they may be essential to survival." - Noam Chomsky, fully Avram Noam Chomsky
"Changes are inseparable from democracy. To defend democracy is to defend the possibility of change; in turn, changes alone can strengthen democracy." - Octavio Paz, born Octavio Paz Lozano
"Democracy stands between two tyrannies: the one which it has overthrown and the one into which it will develop." - Paul Eldridge
"Democracy comes into being after the poor have conquered their opponents, slaughtering some and banishing some, while to the remainder they give an equal share of freedom and power; and this is the form of government in which the magistrates are commonly elected by lot." - Plato NULL
"There can be no daily democracy without daily citizenship." - Ralph Nader
"Information is the currency of democracy." - Ralph Nader
"Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary." - Reinhold Niebuhr, fully Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr
"The test of democracy is not whether the majority prevails, but whether the minority is tolerated." - William Temple, fully Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet
"If we are serious about reducing the size of government and its burdens, then we need to return economic self-determination to the people… We must do it by fostering economic democracy. We must do everything possible to assure ordinary citizens the possibility of owning a small, usable share of the country." - Wendell Berry
"I believe democracy to be of all forms of government the most natural and the most consonant with individual liberty. In it no one transfers his natural right so absolutely that he has no further voice in affairs, he only hands it over to the majority of a society, whereof he is a unit. Thus all men remain, as they were in the state of nature, equals." -
"Of all obstacles to that complete democracy of which we dream, is there a greater than property?" - David Grayson, pseudonym of Ray Stannard Baker
"The essential ingredient of democracy is not doctrine but intelligence, not authority but reason, not cynicism but faith in men, faith in God. Our strength lies in the fearless pursuit of truth by the minds of men who are free." - David Eli Lilienthal, "Mr. TVA"
"Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time." - E. B. White, fully Elwyn Brooks White
"The primal principle of democracy is the worth and dignity of the individual" - Edward Bellamy
"I strongly believe that education is the best means for people to progress in life. It gives people many, many choices for the kind of life they want to live, and the kind of lifestyle they want to have. But more importantly I think – and it’s a cliché, but it’s true – a well-educated society maintains a rich democracy. When our society is not well educated, democracy suffers. The other reason that I strongly support public education is that it is the best means for people who come from poor economic background to escape poverty. The obstacles are greater, but at least the opportunities are there. Education helps to level the playing field." - Francisco Jiménez
"We must present democracy as a force holding within itself the seeds of unlimited progress by the human race. By our actions we should make it clear that such a democracy is a means to a better way of life, together with a better understanding among nations. Tyranny inevitably must retire before the tremendous moral strength of the gospel of freedom and self-respect for the individual, but we have to recognize that these democratic principles do not flourish on empty stomachs, and that people turn to false promises of dictators because they are hopeless and anything promises something better than the miserable existence that they endure. However, material assistance alone is not sufficient. The most important thing for the world today in my opinion is a spiritual regeneration which would reestablish a feeling of good faith among men generally. Discouraged people are in sore need of the inspiration of great principles. Such leadership can be the rallying point against intolerance, against distrust, against that fatal insecurity that leads to war. It is to be hoped that the democratic nations can provide the necessary leadership." - George Marshall, fully George Catlett Marshall, Jr.
"Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary. " - Richard Niebuhr, fully Helmut Richard Niebuhr
"Perhaps our national ambition to standardize ourselves has behind it the notion that democracy means standardization. But standardization is the surest way to destroy the initiative, to benumb the creative impulse above all else essential to the vitality and growth of democratic ideals." - Ida Tarbell, fully Ida Minerva Tarbell
"If a man went simply by what he saw, he might be tempted to affirm that the essence of democracy is melodrama. " - Irving Babbitt
"We slowly learn that life consists of processes as well as results, and that failure may come quite as easily from ignoring the adequacy of one's method as from selfish or ignoble aims. We are thus brought to a conception of Democracy not merely as a sentiment which desires the well-being of all [people], nor yet as a creed which believes in the essential dignity and equality of all [people], but as that which affords a rule for living as well as a test of faith." - Jane Addams
"If you really care for freedom, liberty, There cannot be any democracy or liberal institution without politics. The only true antidote to the perversions of politics is more politics and better politics. Not negation of politics." - Jayaprakash Narayan, known as JP Narayan, Jayaprakash or Loknayak
"In the strict sense of the term, a true democracy has never existed, and never will exist. It is against natural order that the great number should govern and that the few should be governed. " - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"Vietnam presumably taught us that the United States could not serve as the world's policeman; it should also have taught us the dangers of trying to be the world's midwife to democracy when the birth is scheduled to take place under conditions of guerrilla war." - Jeane Kirkpatrick
"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." - John Adams
"A democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience. The extension in space of the number of individuals who participate in an interest so that each has to refer his own action to that of others, and to consider the action of others to give point and direction to his own, is equivalent to the breaking down of those barriers of class, race, and national territory which kept men from realizing the full import of their activity. These more numerous and more varied points of contact denote a greater diversity of stimuli to which an individual has to respond; they consequently put a premium on variation in action. They secure a liberation of powers which remain suppressed as long as the incitations to action are partial, as they must be in a group which in its exclusiveness shuts out many interests." - John Dewey
"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. " - John Naisbitt
"Pure democracy cannot subsist long nor be carried far into the departments of state - it is very subject to caprice and the madness of popular rage" - John Witherspoon
"In the democracy of the dead all men at last are equal. There is neither rank nor station nor prerogative in the republic of the grave. " - John James Ingalls
"Bureaucracy is not an obstacle to democracy but an inevitable complement to it. " - Joseph Schumpeter
"Education is a human right with immense power to transform. On its foundation rest the cornerstones of freedom, democracy and sustainable human development." - Kofi Annan, fully Kofi Atta Annan
"The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections." - John Dalberg-Acton, Lord Acton, fully John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton
"The common vice of democracy is disregard for morality." - John Dalberg-Acton, Lord Acton, fully John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton
"To make democracy work, we must be a notion of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain." - Louis L'Amour, fully Louis Dearborn L'Amour
"What are the American ideals? They are the development of the individual for his own and the common good; 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
"Socialism and democracy are irreconcilable." - Ludwig von Mises, fully Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises
"One of the basic causes for all the trouble in the world today is that people talk too much and think too little. They act too impulsively without thinking. I am not advocating in the slightest that we become mutes with our voices stilled because of fear of criticism of what we might say. That is moral cowardice. And moral cowardice that keeps us from speaking our minds is as dangerous to this country as irresponsible talk. The right way is not always the popular and easy way. Standing for right when it is unpopular is a true test of moral character. The importance of individual thinking to the preservation of our democracy and our freedom cannot be overemphasized. The broader sense of the concept of your role in the defense of democracy is that of the citizen doing his most for the preservation of democracy and peace by independent thinking, making that thinking articulate by translating it into action at the ballot boxes, in the forums, and in everyday life, and being constructive and positive in that thinking and articulation. The most precious thing that democracy gives to us is freedom. You and I cannot escape the fact that the ultimate responsibility for freedom is personal. Our freedoms today are not so much in danger because people are consciously trying to take them away from us as they are in danger because we forget to use them. Freedom unexercised may be freedom forfeited. The preservation of freedom is in the hands of the people themselves — not of the government." - Margaret Chase Smith
"How can we speak of Democracy or Freedom when from the very beginning of life we mould the child to undergo tyranny, to obey a dictator? How can we expect democracy when we have reared slaves? Real freedom begins at the beginning of life, not at the adult stage. These people who have been diminished in their powers, made short-sighted, devitalized by mental fatigue, whose bodies have become distorted, whose wills have been broken by elders who say: “your will must disappear and mine prevail!”—how can we expect them, when school-life is finished, to accept and use the rights of freedom?" - Maria Montessori
"Celebrity distorts democracy by giving the rich, beautiful, and famous more authority than they deserve." - Maureen Dowd, fully Maureen Bridgid Dowd
"When threatened, the first thing a democracy gives up is democracy." - Mignon McLaughlin
"We are witnessing most profound social change. Whether in the East or the South, the West or the North, hundreds of millions of people, new nations and states, new public movements and ideologies have moved to the forefront of history. Broad-based and frequently turbulent popular movements have given expression, in a multidimensional and contradictory way, to a longing for independence, democracy and social justice. The idea of democratizing the entire world order has become a powerful socio-political force. At the same time, the scientific and technological revolution has turned many economic, food, energy, environmental, information and population problems, which only recently we treated as national or regional ones, into global problems. Thanks to the advances in mass media and means of transportation, the world seems to have become more visible and tangible. International communication has become easier than ever before." - Mikhail Gorbachev, fully Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev
"Liberty and democracy become unholy when their hands are dyed red with innocent blood." - Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
"To safeguard democracy the people must have a keen sense of independence, self-respect, and their oneness." - Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
"The spirit of democracy cannot be established in the midst of terrorism, whether governmental or popular." - Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu