Democracy Sayings and Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old democracy quotes, democracy sayings, and democracy proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.

Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. Winston Churchill
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote! Benjamin Franklin
Democracy works when people claim it as their own. BILL MOYERS
Democracy consists of choosing your dictators, after they've told you what you think it is you want to hear. ALAN COREN
Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half the time. E.B. WHITE
Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. Henry Louis Mencken
Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers. Aristotle
Democracy is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequal alike. Plato
Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage. Henry Louis Mencken
Democracy, like liberty, justice and other social and political rights are not given. They are earned through courage, resolution and sacrifice. Aung San Suu Kyi
Democracy is the process by which people choose the man who'll get the blame. Bertrand Russell
Democracy is the form of government that gives every man the right to be his own oppressor. James Russell Lowell
Democracy is the art of thinking independently together. Alexander Meiklejohn
A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption and carry desolation in their way. Fisher Ames
Democracy means government by discussion, but it is only effective if you can stop people talking. Clement Atlee
Democracy means not 'I am as good as you are' but 'You are as good as I am. Theodore Parker
Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions - it only guarantees equality of opportunity. Irving Kristol
Democracy is 51% of the people taking away the rights of the other 49%. Thomas Jefferson
Democracy is like a hobby horse: It will carry you nowhere unless you use your own legs. Herbert Samuel
Democracy is not a fragile flower; still it needs cultivating. Ronald Reagan
Democracy means that anyone can grow up to be president, and anyone who doesn't grow up can be vice president. Johnny Carson
The ship of democracy, which has weathered all storms, may sink through the mutiny of those on board. Grover Cleveland
Democracy is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people. Harry Emerson Fosdick
Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve. George Bernard Shaw
Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. George Bernard Shaw
Democracy: The state of affairs in which you consent to having your pocket picked, and elect the best man to do it. Benjamin Lichtenberg
Democracy is like a raft: It won't sink, but you will always have your feet wet. Russell B. Long
Democracy cannot flourish half rich and half poor, any more than it can flourish half free and half slave. Felix G. Rohatyn
Democracy is an experiment, and the right of the majority to rule is no more inherent than the right of the minority to rule; and unless the majority represents sane, righteous, unselfish public sentiment, it has no inherent right. William Allen White
The primal principle of democracy is the worth and dignity of the individual. Edward Bellamy
Democracy is not the law of the majority but the protection of the minority. Albert Camus
In a democracy, the individual enjoys not only the ultimate power but carries the ultimate responsibility. Norman Cousins
I understand democracy as something that gives the weak the same chance as the strong. Mohandas K. Gandhi
A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy. Theodore Roosevelt
Democracy is constructed like an edifice, freedom by freedom, right by right, until it reaches its snapping point. Abdoulaye Wade
The whole purpose of democracy is that we may hold counsel with one another, so as not to depend upon the understanding of one man. Woodrow Wilson
In our so-called democracy we are accustomed to give the majority what they want rather than educate them to understand what is best for them. Carter Woodson
Democracy is the government of the people, by the people, for the people. Abraham Lincoln
Democracy is the most demanding of all forms of government in terms of the energy, imagination, and public spirit required of the individual. George C. Marshall
Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education. Franklin D. Roosevelt
Democracy is supposed to give you a feeling of choice, like painkiller x and painkiller y. But they're both just aspirin. Gore Vidal
Adultery is the application of democracy to love. H. L. Mencken
Democracy is only an experiment in government, and it as the obvious disadvantage of merely counting votes instead of weighing them. Dean Inge
Democracy is an abuse of statistics. Jorge Luis Borges
The great thing about democracy is that it gives every voter a chance to do something stupid. Art Spander
Democracy encourages the majority to decide things about which the majority is ignorant. John Simon
Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. H.L. Mencken
Democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. Ronald Reagan
Democracy is the power of equal votes for unequal minds. Charles I of England
Democracy has nothing to do with freedom. Democracy is a soft variant of communism, and rarely in the history of ideas has it been taken for anything else. Hans-Hermann Hoppe
Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. Barrack Obama
If one man offers you democracy and another offers you a bag of grain, at what stage of starvation will you prefer the grain to vote? Bertrand Russell
Democracy reads well, but it doesn't act well. Bernard Shaw
Representative government should be something for us to support rather than something to support us. Irvin S. Cobb
We adore titles and heredities in our hearts and ridicule them with our hearts and ridicule them with our mouths; this is our democratic privilege. Mark Twain
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. Mencken
A fanatical belief in democracy makes democratic institutions impossible. Bertrand Russell
If you want to understand democracy, spend less time in the library with Plato, and more time in the buses with people. Simeon Strunsky
Democracy is ever eager for rapid progress, and the only progress which can be rapid is progress downhill. James Jeans
Democracy is a word all public men use and none understand. Bernard Shaw
The doctrine that the cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy is like saying that the cure of crime is more crime. Mencken
Democracy is the hole in the stuffed shirt through which the sawdust slowly trickles. E.B. White
A democracy is a government in the hands of men of low birth, no property, and unskilled labor. Aristotle
Democracy is the last refuge of cheap misgovernment. Bernard Shaw
Democracy is a form of government where you can always say what you like, and do what you're told. Evan Esar
Government of the people and for the people never seems to get along with the people. Evan Esar
Democracy is a ship of state whose officers try to steer a straight course in all directions. Evan Esar
The virtue of a free government is that the more freedom you have, the less government you need to have. Evan Esar
Democracy is a form of government whose citizens have complete freedom to choose which candidate they prefer to mess things up for them. Evan Esar
Democracy is being allowed to vote for the candidate you dislike least. Robert Byrne
Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber. Plato
Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other. Oscar Ameringer
An election is coming. Universal peace is declared and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry. T.S. Eliot
Politics are almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times. Winston Churchill
The office of government is not to confer happiness but to give men the opportunity to work out happiness for themselves. William Channing
The impersonal hand of government can never replace the helping hand of a neighbor. Hubert Humphrey
Human freedom is a complex, difficult and private thing. James Baldwin
If we can liken life for a moment, to a furnace, the freedom is a fire which burns away illusion. James Baldwin
The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of freedom. Nelson Mandela
I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else's freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. Nelson Mandela