Quotes About Democracy

"The survival of democracy depends on the renunciation of violence and the development of nonviolent means to combat evil and advance the good." A.J. Muste
"A democracy which makes or even effectively prepares for modern, scientific war must necessarily cease to be democratic. No country can be really well prepared for modern war unless it is governed by a tyrant, at the head of a highly trained and perfectly obedient bureaucracy." Aldous Huxley
"In a democracy, the opposition is not only tolerated as constitutional, but must be maintained because it is indispensable." Walter Lippman
"It has been said that Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." Winston Churchill
"Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time." E.B. White
"We have learned to say that the good must be extended to all of society before it can be held secure by any one person or any one class. But we have not yet learned to add to that statement, that unless all [people] and all classes contribute to a good, we cannot even be sure that it is worth having." Jane Addams
"As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy." Abraham Lincoln
"The aim of education is to enable individuals to continue their education ... (and) the object and reward of learning is continued capacity for growth. Now this idea cannot be applied to all the members of a society except where intercourse of man with man is mutual, and except where there is adequate provision for the reconstruction of social habits and institutions by means of wide stimulation arising from equitably distributed interests. And this means a democratic society." John Dewy
"Democracy encourages the majority to decide things about which the majority is ignorant." John Simon
"It would be folly to argue that the people cannot make political mistakes. They can and do make grave mistakes. They know it, they pay the penalty, but compared with the mistakes which have been made by every kind of autocracy they are unimportant." Calvin Coolidge