Elections should be held on April 16th- the day after we pay our income taxes. That is one of the few things that might discourage politicians from being big spenders.

Our friends at the Republican convention were more than happy to talk about everything they think is wrong with America, but they didn’t have much to say about how they’d make it right. They want your vote, but they don’t want you to know their plan.

Economic freedom cannot be sacrificed if political freedom is to be preserved.

The U.S. and its allies will do anything they can to prevent authentic democracy in the Arab world.

Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.

I told y’all I didn’t vote, right? But if I would’ve voted, I would’ve voted for Trump.

Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority.

The experience of democracy is like the experience of life itself-always changing, infinite in its variety, sometimes turbulent and all the more valuable for having been tested by adversity.

While democracy in the long run is the most stable form of government, in the short run, it is among the most fragile.

I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.

I think it’s important to vote.

Up until the First World War, when people turned anti-German, Germany had been described by American political scientists as the model of democracy.

In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.

We need earmark reform, and when I’m President, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely.

America is the student who defies the odds to become the first in a family to go to college – the citizen who defies the cynics and goes out there and votes – the young person who comes out of the shadows to demand the right to dream. That’s what America is about.

Ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors to bullets.

Democracy as a system has evolved into something that Thomas Jefferson didn’t anticipate.

In the 21st century, the countries that thrive will be the ones where citizens know their voices will be heard because the institutions are transparent.

Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.

Because of my parents‘ love of democracy, we came to America after being driven twice from our home in Czechoslovakia – first by Hitler and then by Stalin.

Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.

All the blood is drained out of democracy – it dies – when only half the population votes.

Despotism can only exist in darkness, and there are too many lights now in the political firmament to permit it to remain anywhere, as it has heretofore done, almost everywhere.

Even if the government spends itself into bankruptcy and the economy still does not recover, Keynesians can always say that it would have worked if only the government had spent more.

The government is us; we are the government, you and I.

It is unnatural for a majority to rule, for a majority can seldom be organized and united for specific action, and a minority can.

We don’t believe in planners and deciders making the decisions on behalf of Americans.

I hope that no American will waste his franchise and throw away his vote by voting either for me or against me solely on account of my religious affiliation. It is not relevant.

Whenever a fellow tells me he’s bipartisan, I know he’s going to vote against me.

We will not be intimidated or pushed off the world stage by people who do not like what we stand for, and that is, freedom, democracy and the fight against disease, poverty and terrorism.

We can’t equate democracy with Christianity because the largest democracy on earth is India, which is primarily Hindu. The third largest democracy is Indonesia, which is Islamic. Democracy and freedom are not dependent on Christian beliefs.

It costs governments money to keep fuel prices low. Oil-rich Yemen, for instance, devotes 9 percent of its GDP to making sure its people don’t riot when oil prices rise.

The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.

Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy.

As I have done in every election since I started voting so many years ago, I always like to take my time and examine the two candidates, see not only the two candidates but the policies they will bring in, the people they will bring in, who they might appoint to the Supreme Court, and look at the whole range of issues before making a decision.

It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.

Africans require, want, the franchise on the basis of one man one vote. They want political independence.

You can’t put democracy and freedom back into a box.

That fatal drollery called a representative government.

Our public life withers when only the most extreme voices get attention. Most of all, democracy breaks down when the average person feels their voice doesn’t matter; that the system is rigged in favor of the rich or the powerful or some narrow interest.

Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses.

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

The more people who are dependent on government handouts, the more votes the left can depend on for an ever-expanding welfare state.

If people don’t vote, everything stays the same. You can protest until the sky turns yellow or the moon turns blue, and it’s not going to change anything if you don’t vote.

Reading and writing, like everything else, improve with practice. And, of course, if there are no young readers and writers, there will shortly be no older ones. Literacy will be dead, and democracy – which many believe goes hand in hand with it – will be dead as well.

To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.

I grew up in San Francisco. And so I’m informed in a certain kind of way about, you know, believing in democracy and believing in America. And I’m a very ardent patriot.

You know people talk about federal money as if it falls from heaven. You know we thank heaven for it, but it came out of people’s pockets – and I’ve driven all over Washington, D.C., I cannot find the money tree.

Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.

You’re not just voting for an individual, in my judgment, you’re voting for an agenda. You’re voting for a platform. You’re voting for a political philosophy.

I know it’s going to be the private sector that leads this country out of the current economic times we’re in. You can spend your money better than the government can spend your money.

You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution.

I’ve rarely kept my distance from kind of – I don’t know if we can call it politics, but kind of, civic engagement and that kind of thing, except I tended to think, ‚Well, do it yourself before you start telling other people what they should be doing.‘

Democracy is only a dream: it should be put in the same category as Arcadia, Santa Claus, and Heaven.

Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.

Remember, it is not about voting for the perfect candidate – there is no such thing. Presidents are human.

A President needs political understanding to run the government, but he may be elected without it.

Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

I have considered voting Conservative because I am so against the Labour party.

Don’t forget what I discovered that over ninety percent of all national deficits from 1921 to 1939 were caused by payments for past, present, and future wars.