Democracy Quotes
Barack Obama and the Nigerian president Bola Tinubu have the most entries, with H. L. Mencken and Franklin Roosevelt behind them, so a lot of the page is speeches. For the dry material go to Mencken in Smart Set (1910), who called democracy the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard; Shaw’s Maxims for Revolutionists (1903), on election by the incompetent many instead of appointment by the corrupt few; and Disraeli’s Lothair (1870).
“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch” is credited to Benjamin Franklin and flagged misattributed. The earliest version in the notes is a Usenet post from 23 April 1990. The line that democracy is the most vile form of government, credited to Madison, is flagged too.
A democracy is only as good as the people involved in building it are.
"Democracy cannot survive where citizens do not participate in shaping their common future."
All that brave Athenian talk about democracy applied only to a privileged few.
Violence gnaws on the foundation of democracy. It must be condemned, denounced and Isolated.
Democracy is sometimes messy, and for leaders, sometimes it's frustrating.
The American experiment in democracy is in a danger like it hasn’t been in my lifetime.
Democracy in its best sense is merely the letting in of light and air.