Great Throughts Treasury

"In true democracy every man and women is taught to think for himself or herself." - Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu

"If we want to cultivate a true spirit of democracy we cannot afford to be intolerant. Intolerance betrays want of faith in one’s cause. " - Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu

"The love of democracy is that of equality." - Charles De Montesquieu, formally Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu

"The victory of democracy in South Africa is the common achievement of all humanity." - Nelson Mandela, fully Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela

"There was much in such a society that was primitive and insecure and it certainly could never measure up to the demands of the present epoch. But in such a society are contained the seeds of revolutionary democracy in which none will be held in slavery." - Nelson Mandela, fully Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela

"The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness." - Niels Bohr, fully Neils Henrik David Bohr

"Through money, democracy becomes its own destroyer, after money has destroyed intellect. " - Oswald Spengler, fully Oswald Manuel Arnold Gottfried Spengler

"The deadliest foe of democracy is not autocracy but liberty frenzied. Liberty is not foolproof. For its beneficent working it demands self-restraint, a sane and clear recognition of the practical and attainable, and of the fact that there are laws of nature which are beyond our power to change." - Otto Kahn, fully Otto Hermann Kahn

"Authority has always attracted the lowest elements in the human race. All through history, mankind has been bullied by scum. Those who lord it over their fellows and toss commands in every direction and would boss the grass in the meadow about which way to bend in the wind are the most depraved kind of prostitutes. They will submit to any indignity, perform any vile act, do anything to achieve power. The worst off-sloughings of the planet are the ingredients of sovereignty. Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy the whores are us." - P. J. O'Rourke

"Our intellectual, cultural, and political elites are today engaged in one of the most audacious and ambitious experiments in history. They are trying to transform a Western Christian republic into an egalitarian democracy made up of all the tribes, races, creeds, and cultures of planet Earth. They have dethroned our God, purged our cradle faith from public life, and repudiated the Judeo-Christian moral code by which previous generations sought to live." - Pat Buchanan, fully Patrick Joseph "Pat" Buchanan

"Every profession has an ideology and a drive for power that goes far beyond its achievements and it is the task of democracy to keep this ideology and this drive under control. Science is here no different from other institutions." - Paul Feyerabend, fully Paul Karl Feyerabend

" Well, one of the things we’ve done at my institute is we’ve created a website called wiserearth.org precisely to create, in a sense, an information commons for this unnamed movement that is also the fastest-growing movement in the world, and where you can put in your organization profiles, events and so forth, and a website, Democracy Now! or any other, can sit right on top of the data and pull it up, so that we’re trying to create more or less something that feeds these NGOs and the ability for them to recognize, contact, connect and collaborate or coalesce in different ways. That is missing right now." - Paul Hawken

"So I think one can say on empirical grounds – not because of some philosophical principle – that you can’t have democracy unless you have a market economy." - Peter L. Berger, fully Peter Ludwig Berger

"Let me say again that the relationship is asymmetrical: there’s no democracy without a market economy, but you can have a market economy without democracy." - Peter L. Berger, fully Peter Ludwig Berger

"As our government takes democracy to unlikely places all over the world, how about a decent respect for self-government at home! " - Phyllis Schlafly, fully Phyllis McAlpin Stewart Schlafly

"Monarchy degenerates into tyranny, aristocracy into oligarchy, and democracy into savage violence and chaos." - Polybius NULL

"It is a mistake to apply American democratic procedures to the faith and the truth. You cannot take a vote on the truth. The value of democracy stands or falls with the values which it embodies and promotes." - Pope John Paul II, born Karol Józef Wojtyła, aka Saint John Paul the Great NULL

"The democracy process provides for political and social change without violence." - Daw Aung San Suu Kyi

"The quintessential revolution is that of the spirit, born of an intellectual conviction of the need for change in those mental attitudes and values which shape the course of a nation's development. A revolution which aims merely at changing official policies and institutions with a view to an improvement in material conditions has little chance of genuine success. Without a revolution of the spirit, the forces which produced the iniquities of the old order would continue to be operative, posing a constant threat to the process of reform and regeneration. It is not enough merely to call for freedom, democracy and human rights. There has to be a united determination to persevere in the struggle, to make sacrifices in the name of enduring truths, to resist the corrupting influences of desire, ill will, ignorance and fear." - Daw Aung San Suu Kyi

"The struggle for democracy and human rights in Burma is a struggle for life and dignity. It is a struggle that encompasses our political, social and economic aspirations." - Daw Aung San Suu Kyi

"Those of us who decided to work for democracy in Burma made our choice in the conviction that the danger of standing up for basic human rights in a repressive society was preferable to the safety of a quiescent life in servitude. Ours is a nonviolent movement that depends on faith in the human predilection for fair play and compassion." - Daw Aung San Suu Kyi

"We have faith in the power to change what needs to be changed but we are under no illusion that the transition from dictatorship to liberal democracy will be easy, or that democratic government will mean the end of all our problems. We know that our greatest challenges lie ahead of us and that our struggle to establish a stable, democratic society will continue beyond our own life span." - Daw Aung San Suu Kyi

"Don't ever dare to take your college as a matter of course - because, like democracy and freedom, many people you'll never know have broken their hearts to get it for you." - Alice Miller, née Rostovski

"And Israel is not only our ally; it is a beacon of what democracy can and should mean. If the people of the Middle East are not sure what democracy means, let them look to Israel." - Hillary Rodham Clinton

"There cannot be true democracy unless women are given the opportunity to take responsibility for their own lives. There cannot be true democracy unless all citizens are able to participate fully in the lives of their country." - Hillary Rodham Clinton

"We are here to advance the cause of women and to advance the cause of democracy and to make it absolutely clear that the two are inseparable. There cannot be true democracy unless women's voices are heard. There cannot be true democracy unless women are given the opportunity to take responsibility for their own lives." - Hillary Rodham Clinton

"The procedure we are pursuing is that of true democracy. Semi-democracy accepts the dictatorship of a majority in establishing its arbitrary, ergo, unnatural, laws. True democracy discovers by patient experiment and unanimous acknowledgement what the laws of nature or universe may be for the physical support and metaphysical satisfaction of the human intellect's function in universe." - Buckminster Fuller, fully Richard Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller

"To Personalism, personality is the supreme value. Society then should be so organized as to present every person the best possible opportunity for self-development, physically, mentally, and spiritually since the person is the supreme essence of democracy and hostile to totalitarianisms of every sort." - Ralph Tyler Flewelling

"The antithesis of democracy is class dictatorship, whether by groups of bankers, investors, managers, politicians, lawyers or union members. Over a considerable part of the world the unspeakable doctrine is being preached that the ideal of a democratic State is a snare and a delusion. A politician if he denies the existence of the essentials of democracy and denies it in such a way as to create class feeling, is not working in the interest of democracy even though he protests to the high heavens that that is his objective." - Raymond Moley, fully Raymond Charles Moley

"Greens all over the globe will need to develop the facilities of democracy for voters, workers, consumers, small taxpayers and the environment so that all people may participate in power to advance justice, peace and the pursuit of happiness." - Ralph Nader

"Half of democracy is about just showing up." - Ralph Nader

"How did we ever end up with a democracy where challengers to the entrenched corrupt political system in our country cannot get to tens of millions of voters without going through a gate whose key is controlled by the two major parties who want to exclude reforms?" - Ralph Nader

"The democracy gap in our politics and elections spells a deep sense of powerlessness by people who drop out, do not vote, or listlessly vote for the least worst every four years and then wonder why after every cycle the least worst gets worse." - Ralph Nader

"The only place where democracy comes before work is in the dictionary." - Ralph Nader

"This commission is a political organization designed to support the two major parties and shut out third party and independent candidates... We need to reinvigorate our democracy by having real debates -- not joint press conferences designed to limit the voices heard by voters." - Ralph Nader

"We can't simply stand by idly and watch democracy and our government be turned over to the commercial interests of the giant corporations who have forgotten where they came from, which is the U.S.A." - Ralph Nader

"What we have now is democracy without citizens. No one is on the public's side. All the buyers are on the corporation's side. And the bureaucrats in the administration don't think the government belongs to the people." - Ralph Nader

"The American intellectuals, in their preoccupation with reality, seem to have forgotten that the real enemy is War rather than imperial Germany. There is work to be done to prevent this war of ours from passing into popular mythology as a holy crusade. What shall we do with leaders who tell us that we go to war in moral spotlessness or who make democracy synonymous with a republican form of government?" - Randolph Bourne, fully Randolph Silliman Bourne

"Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary." - Reinhold Niebuhr, fully Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr

"We have, on the whole, more liberty and equality than Russia has. Russia has liberty and more equality. Whether democracy should be defined primarily in terms of liberty or equality is a source of unending debate." - Reinhold Niebuhr, fully Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr

"The foundation of democracy is the sense of spiritual independence which nerves the individual to stand alone against the powers of this world." - R. H. Tawney, fully Richard Henry Tawney

"There is no democracy in the world of intellect, and no democracy of taste." - Robertson Davies

"In a constitutional democracy the moral content of law must be given by the morality of the framer or legislator, never by the morality of the judge." - Robert Bork, fully Robert Heron Bork

"Essentially Americanism, which in democracy, is a moraland spiritual adventure, concerned primarily with a sound and workable philosophy of life, summed up in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, respect for human personality, and recognition of the dignity and value of the individual. In his brilliant statement on The Coming Victory of Democracy, Thomas Mann tells us he believes in democracy because he believes in freedom, and he believes in freedom because he believes in human nature and the dignity of man, who is more than a depersonalized unit in the state. Man is a spiritual being whom it is the duty of the state to serve. He is more than a slave to be kept in order and submission by the crack of a master's whip. "The essential man," says he, "is not the creature who hurls down bombs on children, but the mind that devised the flying machine, the seeker and builder, not the destroyer."" - Robert Gordon Sproul

"Here lie men who loved America because their ancestors generations ago helped in her founding. And other men who loved her with equal passion because they themselves or their own fathers escaped from oppression to her blessed shores. Here lie officers and men, Negroes and Whites, rich men and poor, together. Here are Protestants, Catholics, and Jews together. Here no man prefers another because of his faith or despises him because of his color. Here there are no quotas of how many from each group are admitted or allowed. Among these men there is no discrimination. No prejudices. No hatred. Theirs is the highest and purest democracy... Whosoever of us lifts his hand in hate against a brother, or who thinks himself superior to those who happen to be in the minority, makes of this ceremony and the bloody sacrifice it commemorates, an empty, hollow mockery. To this then, as our solemn sacred duty, do we the living now dedicate ourselves: To the right of Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, of White men and Negroes alike, to enjoy the democracy for which all of them have here paid the price... We here solemnly swear this shall not be in vain. Out of this and from the suffering and sorrow of those who mourn this, will come, we promise, the birth of a new freedom for the sons of men everywhere." - Roland B. Gittelsohn, fully Roland Bertram Gittelsohn

"This is the grimmest, and surely the holiest task we have faced since D–day. Here before us lie the bodies of comrades and friends. Men who until yesterday or last week laughed with us, joked with us, trained with us. Men who were on the same ships with us, and went over the side with us as we prepared to hit the beaches of this island.It is not easy to do so,” He continued. Some of us have buried our closest friends here. We saw these men killed before our very eyes. Any one of us might have died in their place. Indeed some of us are alive and breathing at this very monent only because men who lie here beneath us had the courage and strength to give their lives for ours. To speak in memory of men such as these is not easy . . . No, our poor power of speech can add nothing to what these men and the other dead of our Division who are not here have already done. All we can even hope to do is follow their example. To show the same selfless courage in peace as they did in war. To swear by the grace of God and the stubborn strength and power of human will, their sons and ours will never suffer these pains again. These men have done their job well. They have paid the ghastly price of freedom. . . . “We dedicate ourselves, first, to live together in peace the way they fought and are buried in this war. Here lie men who loved America because their ancestors generations ago helped in her founding and other men who loved her with equal passion because they themselves or their own fathers escaped from oppression to her blessed shores. Here lie officers and men, Negroes and whites, rich men and poor--- together . . . . Theirs is the highest and purest democracy. Any man among us, the living, who fails to understand that will thereby betray those who lie here dead. Whoever of us lifts his hand in hate against a brother . . . . makes of this ceremony and of the bloody sacrifice it commemorates an empty, hollow mockery. To one thing more do we consecrate ourselves in memory of those who sleep beneath these crosses and stars. We shall not foolishly suppose, as did the last generation of America’s fighting men, that victory on the battlefield will automatically guarantee the triumph of Democracy at home. This war with all its frightful heartache and suffering, is but the beginning of our generations struggle for democracy . . . . Thus do we memorialize those who, have ceased living with us, now live within us. Thus do we consecrate ourselves, the living, to carry on the struggle they began. Too much pain and heartache have fertilized the earth on which we stand. We here solemnly swear: This shall not be in vain! Out of this, and from the suffering and sorrow of those who mourn this, will come—we promise – the birth of a new freedom for the sons of men everywhere." - Roland B. Gittelsohn, fully Roland Bertram Gittelsohn

"Journalism has already come to be the first power in the land." - Samuel Bowles III

"Our natural, unalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation of government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment.... You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for out children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we'll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness." - Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan

"The miracle of life is given by One greater than ourselves, but once given, each life is ours to nurture and preserve, to foster, not only for today's world but for a better one to come. There is no purpose more noble than for us to sustain and celebrate life in a turbulent world, and that is what we must do now. We have no higher duty, no greater cause as humans. Life and the preservation of freedom to live it in dignity is what we are on this Earth to do. Everything we work to achieve must seek that end so that someday our prime ministers, our premiers, our presidents, and our general secretaries will talk not of war and peace, but only of peace." - Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan

"You and I are told increasingly that we have to choose between a left or a right. There is only an up or down: up to man's age-old dream -- the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order -- or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. And regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course." - Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan