"No government is ever perfect. One of the chief virtues of a democracy, however, is that its defects are always visible and under democratic processes can be pointed out and corrected." ~ Harry Truman
Force, violence, pressure, or compulsion with a view to conformity are both uncivilized and undemocratic. ~ Mahatma Gandhi
As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. ~ Abraham Lincoln
Democracy is the best chance for the best people. ~ Robert Frost
A democracy is no more than an aristocracy of orators. The people are so readily moved by demagogues that control must be exercised by the government over speech and press. ~ Thomas Hobbes
Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions it only guarantees equality of opportunity. ~ Irving Kristol
Democracy is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people. ~ Harry Emerson Fosdick
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. ~ H. L. Mencken
Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time. ~ E.B. White
Democracy is the worst system devised by the wit of man, except for all the others. ~ Winston Churchill
It’s not the voting that’s democracy, it’s the counting. ~ Tom Stoppard
Democracy is not something you believe in or a place to hang your hat, but it's something you do. You participate. If you stop doing it, democracy crumbles. ~ Abbie Hoffman
There can be no daily democracy without daily citizenship. ~ Ralph Nader
Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage. ~ H. L. Mencken
Our democracy must be not only the envy of the world but the engine of our own renewal. There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America. ~ Bill Clinton
The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism -- ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. ~ Noam Chomsky