The ballot is stronger than the bullet.

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

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.

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.

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.

I believe the Republicans have never thought that democracy was anything but a tribal myth.

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.

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

There is too much government today. We’ve got to remember the government should be by the people, of the people, and for the people.

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

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

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

On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does.

Republicans have been accused of abandoning the poor. It’s the other way around. They never vote for us.

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

I became a Republican in 1951, the first year I could vote.

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.

I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

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

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

Oil has become the principal wealth in the hands of the great Yankee transnationals; through this energy source, they had an instrument that considerably expanded their political power in the world.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism.

The government’s job is good governance for everybody. My government will make policies; if you fit into it, come on board, or stay where you are. My job is not to spoon-feed anyone.

The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians.

Self-government can succeed only through an instructed electorate.

A man without a vote is man without protection.

The first requisite of a good citizen in this republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his own weight.

Without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure.

The spirit of democracy is not a mechanical thing to be adjusted by abolition of forms. It requires change of heart.

Democracy is our commitment. It is our great legacy, a legacy we simply cannot compromise. Democracy is in our DNA.

I don’t vote. I don’t do no voting.

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

Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around.

Israel was not created in order to disappear – Israel will endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and the home of the brave. It can neither be broken by adversity nor demoralized by success. It carries the shield of democracy and it honors the sword of freedom.

Ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors to bullets.

Democracy is a daring concept – a hope that we’ll be best governed if all of us participate in the act of government. It is meant to be a conversation, a place where the intelligence and local knowledge of the electorate sums together to arrive at actions that reflect the participation of the largest possible number of people.

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

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.

It’s actually very easy for democracy to disappear.

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.

Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.

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.

I don’t think generally politician come from democratic country. I think not that thinking. But sometimes little bit short-sighted. They are mainly looking for their next vote.

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.

Where is the justice of political power if it executes the murderer and jails the plunderer, and then itself marches upon neighboring lands, killing thousands and pillaging the very hills?

I think organized labor is a necessary part of democracy. Organized labor is the only way to have fair distribution of wealth.

My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

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.

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.

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

Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.

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

My Democratic friends just can’t accept the fact that the American people chose Donald Trump to be president – it’s called democracy. My advice to them, and I say this gently: Fill out a ‚Hurt Feelings Report‘ and let’s move on.

We have the oldest written constitution still in force in the world, and it starts out with three words, ‚We, the people.‘

Fifty years of isolating Cuba had failed to promote democracy, setting us back in Latin America. That’s why we restored diplomatic relations, opened the door to travel and commerce, and positioned ourselves to improve the lives of the Cuban people.

Adultery is the application of democracy to love.

El Salvador is a democracy so it’s not surprising that there are many voices to be heard here. Yet in my conversations with Salvadorans… I have heard a single voice.

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.

I vote and I do jury duty.

I think it’s important to vote.

Democratic societies are unfit for the publication of such thunderous revelations as I am in the habit of making.