Top 1200 Democratic Government Quotes & Sayings

Democratic government requires the consent of the governed.

The 20th century shows that the form of government that we take for granted, a constitutional democratic republic with checks and balances and a rule of law - that form of government is usually temporary.

There is no more democratic government than a revolutionary government.

President Obama's recommended reduction in the tax deduction for charitable giving reflects his fundamental belief that only the government can or should help the poor. He wants to keep the impoverished directly dependent on the government - and the Democratic Party - for their daily bread.

As long-term institutions, I am totally against dictatorships. But a dictatorship may be a necessary system for a transitional period... Personally I prefer a liberal dictator to democratic government lacking liberalism. My personal impression - and this is valid for South America - is that in Chile, for example, we will witness a transition from a dictatorial government to a liberal government.

Look at the political base of the Democratic Party: It is single mothers who run a household. Why? Because it's so tough economically that they look to the government for help and therefore they're going to vote. So if you want to reduce the Democratic advantage, what you want to do is build two parent families, you eliminate that desire for government.

The British Government very naturally would like to see in India the form of democratic constitutions it knows best and thinks best, under which the Government of the country is entrusted to one or other political party in accordance with the turn of elections.

The big problem for a democratic government - democrat with a small "d" - is how to hold down government spending.

Running a democratic country is one of the most difficult things for any government.

The Republican and Democratic Parties are only factions of the Government Party.

In order to continue in office, any government (not simply a 'democratic' government) must have the support of the majority of its subjects. This support, it must be noted, need not be active enthusiasm; it may well be passive resignation as if to an inevitable law of nature.

The revolution has no time for elections. There is no more democratic government in Latin America than the revolutionary government.

First there is the democratic idea: that all men are endowed by their creator with certain natural rights; that these rights are alienable only by the possessor thereof; that they are equal in men; that government is to organize these natural, unalienable and equal rights into institutions designed for the good of the governed, and therefore government is to be of all the people, by all the people, and for all the people. Here government is development, not exploitation.

Criticism in a time of war is essential to the maintenance of any kind of democratic government.

We no longer claim that a genuinely religious government can be democratic, but that it cannot be otherwise.

Democratic capitalism: A cooperative enterprise to earn enough money to buy enough Congressional influence to gain control over the government's guns so as to get even more money for your special-interest group.Social democratic capitalism: A cooperative enterprise to promise sufficient government benefits to enough voters to gain control over the government's guns so as to keep any other special-interest group from getting as much power as yours.

Even if a government can be constitutional without being democratic, it cannot be democratic without being constitutional.

A democratic government in South Africa is not a threat to white people.

(Terrorists) are planning to disrupt our democratic process. It's scary I know, but we're not going to let al Qaeda tell us what to do. In fact, our government has decided that if al Qaeda attempts to disrupt our democratic process, we are going to respond by disrupting it first.

To oppose the policies of a government does not mean you are against the country or the people that the government supposedly represents. Such opposition should be called what it really is: democracy, or democratic dissent, or having a critical perspective about what your leaders are doing. Either we have the right to democratic dissent and criticism of these policies or we all lie down and let the leader, the Fuhrer, do what is best, while we follow uncritically, and obey whatever he commands. That's just what the Germans did with Hitler, and look where it got them.

A fundamental premise of American democratic theory is that government exists to serve the people. ... Public records are one portal through which the people observe their government, ensuring its accountability, integrity, and equity while minimizing sovereign mischief and malfeasance

A lot of people are angry about the democratic abuses that have been committed by the Spanish government.

Ours is a fully democratic government, which in our language we call a people's government.

Democratic elections alone do not remedy the crisis of confidence in government. Moreover, there is no viable justification for a democratic system in which public participation is limited to voting.

Were there a people of gods, their government would be democratic. So perfect a government is not for men.

I believe Tunisia and Egypt should look to Turkey and see what not to do. Turkey seems to be a secular and democratic country but it is only a show. We are losing the effectiveness of democratic institutions like parliament and judiciary. They now are turning into tools for the benefit of a president-ordering system. A democratic government is possible only on a comprehensive democratic base surrounded by the participatory action of ordinary people.

Unemployment is a reproach to a democratic government.

A democratic constitution, not supported by democratic institutions in detail, but confined to the central government, not only is not political freedom, but often creates a spirit precisely the reverse, carrying down to the lowest grade in society the desire and ambition of political domination.

A democratic form of government, a democratic way of life, presupposes free public education over a long period; it presupposes also an education for personal responsibility that too often is neglected.

A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.

Democratic institutions are necessary and very important, and if I remained at the head of government, it could be an obstacle to democratic practice. Also, if I were to remain, then I would have to join one of the parties. If the Dalai Lama joins one party, then that makes it hard for the system to work.

No theory of government was ever given a fairer test or a more prolonged experiment in a democratic country than democratic socialism received in Britain. Yet it was a miserable failure in every respect... To cure the British disease with socialism was like trying to cure leukemia with leeches.

We're a democratic society. Shutting down the government should not be on the agenda.

So what's the difference between republican and democratic forms of government? John Adams captured the essence of the difference when he said, 'You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the Universe.' Nothing in our Constitution suggests that government is a grantor of rights. Instead, government is a protector of rights.

Our government has failed us. From the billion-dollar bailouts to the 'stimulus' package that failed to stimulate to the government takeover of health care, you cried 'Stop!'... but the Democratic Majority in Washington has refused to listen.

Our forms of government - though both cast in the democratic pattern - are greatly different. Indeed, sometimes it appears that many of our misunderstandings spring from an imperfect knowledge on the part of both of us of the dissimilarities in our forms of government.

Secrecy and a free, democratic government don't mix.

Our democratic values also include - and our national security demands - open and transparent government. Some information obviously needs to be protected. And since his first days in office, President Obama has worked to strike the proper balance between the security the American people deserve and the openness our democratic society expects.

I have not the smallest doubt that, if we had a purely democratic government here, the effect would be the same. Either the poor would plunder the rich, and civilisation would perish; or order and property would be saved by a strong military government, and liberty would perish.

Our democratic values also include - and our national security demands - open and transparent government. Some information obviously needs to be protected. And since his first days in office, President Obama has worked to strike the proper balance between the security the American people deserve and the openness our democratic society expects.

The notion that the records of government are the property of the people is radically democratic, but it is broken in practice.

Decision by democratic majority vote is a fine form of government, but it's a stinking way to create.

A world of unseen dictatorship is conceivable, still using the forms of democratic government.

I believe that all government is evil, in that all government must necessarily make war on liberty, and that the democratic government is at least as bad as any of the other forms.

To take an analogy: if we say that a democratic government is the best kind of government, we mean that it most completely fulfills the highest function of a government - the realisation of the will of the people.

Throughout history, when societies face tough economic times, we have seen democratic reforms deferred, decreased trust in government, persecution of minority groups, and a general shrinking of the democratic space.

The Democratic Party is made up of trial lawyers, labor unions, government employees, big city political machines, the coercive utopians, the radical environmentalists, feminists, and others who want to restructure society with tax dollars and government fiat.

The tow pillars of democratic government are the primacy of the law and the budget.

There is a democratic deficit. In Latin America in particular there is real concern that democratic governments are not delivering and that is leading to experimenting with different models that are much less democratic. But even in Western Europe the deficit is a problem.

When I saw how the European Union was developing, it was very obvious what they had in mind was not democratic. In Britain, you vote for a government so the government has to listen to you, and if you don't like it you can change it.

I am from an F.D.R. liberal-Democratic family. With proximity to government, I have become more libertarian.

The right type of [leader] is democratic. He must not consider himself a superior sort of personage. He must actually feel democratic; it is not enough that he try to pose as democratic-he must be democratic, otherwise the veneer, the sheen, would wear off, for you can't fool a body of intelligent American workingmen for very long. He must ring true.

What we call the market is really a democratic process involving millions, and in some markets billions, of people making personal decisions that express their preferences. When you hear someone say that he doesn't trust the market, and wants to replace it with government edicts, he's really calling for a switch from a democratic process to a totalitarian one.

In my personal opinion, Russia is no less democratic than it used to be. It is a democratic country. It is democratic enough.

A louder government with less journalism does not enrich our democratic process.

For us, the government of Venezuelan Nicolas Maduro is not a government that allows democratic plurality. It does not allow for there to be a real opposition, and that is not democratic.

The Popular Unity government represented the first attempt anywhere to build a genuinely democratic transition to socialism - a socialism that, owing to its origins, might be guided not by authoritarian bureaucracy, but by democratic self-rule.

Democratic forms of government are vulnerable to mass prejudice, the so-called tyranny of the majority.

You've got the Democratic Party that now depends on more government spending and actual building the dependence on government in order to increase their political party.

Personally I prefer a liberal dictator to democratic government lacking liberalism.