A Quote by James Weldon Johnson

This country can have no more democracy than it accords and guarantees to the humblest and weakest citizen.

James Weldon Johnson

Quote Topics

Citizen Country Democracy Guarantees More Than Weakest

Quote Author

James Weldon Johnson
American - Poet
June 17, 1871 - June 26, 1938

Your constitution guarantees to every citizen, even the humblest, the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property. It promises to all, religious freedom, the right to all to worship God beneath their own vine and fig tree, according to the dictates of their conscience. It guarantees to all the citizens of the several states the right to become citizens of any one of the states, and to enjoy all the rights and immunities of the citizens of the state of his adoption.

Joseph Smith, Jr.

The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naïve and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair.

H. L. Mencken

The humblest citizen of all the land, when clad in the armor of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of error.

William Jennings Bryan

My notion of democracy is that under it the weakest shall have the same opportunities as the strongest... no country in the world today shows any but patronizing regard for the weak... Western democracy, as it functions today, is diluted fascism... true democracy cannot be worked by twenty men sitting at the center. It has to be worked from below, by the people of every village.

Mahatma Gandhi

The E.U. is more than just a trade organization or a common market; it is a guarantee of democracy, freedom, justice, and human rights. Nations cannot stay in the E.U. if they do not respect these guarantees.

John Bruton

You get to say that the Earth is flat because we live in a country that guarantees your free speech. But it's not a country that guarantees that anything you say is correct.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

The true measure of the justice of a system is the amount of protection it guarantees to the weakest.

Aung San Suu Kyi

A community is democratic only when the humblest and weakest person can enjoy the highest civil, economic, and social rights that the biggest and most powerful possess.

A. Philip Randolph

God chooses as His instrument the humblest and weakest of His creatures to fulfill Himself.

Mahatma Gandhi

Fascism is more of a natural state than democracy. To assume blithely that we can export democracy into any country we choose can serve paradoxically to encourage more fascism at home and abroad. Democracy is a state of grace that is attained only by those countries who have a host of individuals not only ready to enjoy freedom but to undergo the heavy labor of maintaining it.

Norman Mailer

I'm truly worried about the country's direction. I can tell you this categorically, we've got the weakest president and the weakest governor in the history of my 50 years of public service.

Fritz Hollings

A thoughtless citizen of a democracy is a delinquent citizen of a democracy.

Leon Wieseltier

The universe has no prince or king that it [Rome] would consider equal to its humblest citizen.

Pierre Corneille

This is not a contest between persons. The humblest citizen in all the land, when clad in the armor of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of error. I come to you in defense of a cause as holy as the cause of liberty - the cause of humanity.

William Jennings Bryan

More than poverty, more than degree of education, religion, access to natural resources, even degree of democracy - violence against females is the biggest indicator of whether a country will be violent in itself or be willing to use military violence against another country.