If the people of Utah shall peacefully form a State Constitution tolerating polygamy, will the Democracy admit them into the Union?

The mystic cords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the angels of our nature.

In a democracy, allegations will never improve situations. So, I’m against allegations, but I always welcome criticism.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

Well the protester I think is a very powerful thing. It’s basically a mechanism of democracy that, along with capitalism, scientific innovation, those things have built the modern world. And it’s wonderful that the new tools have empowered that protestor so that state secrets, bad developments are not hidden anymore.

Women fight for democracy and engage in the world. But they shouldn’t try and be copying men and be masculine; they should anchor on the home and build on those fundamentals.

The happy Union of these States is a wonder; their Constitution a miracle; their example the hope of Liberty throughout the world.

The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.

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

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.

Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure.

Democracy don’t rule the world, You’d better get that in your head; This world is ruled by violence, But I guess that’s better left unsaid.

Among the friends of Union, there is great diversity of sentiment and of policy in regard to slavery and the African race among us.

Democracy is the process by which people choose the man who’ll get the blame.

Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.

If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost.

Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves and the only way they could do this is by not voting.

I understand a ship to be made for the carrying and preservation of the cargo, and so long as the ship can be saved, with the cargo, it should never be abandoned. This Union likewise should never be abandoned unless it fails and the possibility of its preservation shall cease to exist, without throwing passengers and cargo overboard.

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.

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.

Concentration of executive power, unless it’s very temporary and for specific circumstances, let’s say fighting world war two, it’s an assault on democracy.

The New Deal repudiation of democracy has left the Republican Party alone the guardian of the Ark of the Covenant with its charter of freedom.

We Americans… bear the ark of liberties of the world.

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.

Without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure.

Self-government can succeed only through an instructed electorate.

In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme.

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

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.

Adultery is the application of democracy to love.

A whole people with the ballot in their hands possess the most conclusive and unlimited power ever entrusted to humanity.

Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.

A democracy which makes or even effectively prepares for modern, scientific war must necessarily cease to be democratic. No country can be really well prepared for modern war unless it is governed by a tyrant, at the head of a highly trained and perfectly obedient bureaucracy.

On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

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

Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.

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

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

All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the utmost importance to the citizens of a democracy.

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.

Death is acceptable only if it represents the physically necessary passage toward a union, the condition of a metamorphosis.

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.

All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin. And therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words ‚Ich bin ein Berliner!‘

Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.

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.

By taking a second wife he pays the highest compliment to the first, by showing that she made him so happy as a married man, that he wishes to be so a second time.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

I confess I enjoy democracy immensely. It is incomparably idiotic, and hence incomparably amusing.

Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization.

Democracy passes into despotism.

I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy – but that could change.

Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy.

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.

Democracy… is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder; and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.

Optimism comes less easily today, not because democracy is less vigorous, but because democracy’s enemies have refined their instruments of repression.

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.

Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated.

Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.

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