Democracy In America Quotes

For those who can, one of the things to do is not to move. To stay put. That doesn't mean don't travel; it means have a place and get involved in what can be done in that place. That's the only way we're going to have a representative democracy in America. Nobody stays anywhere long enough to take responsibility for a local community.

There's a big difference in a representative republic and a democracy. We do not have a democracy in America.

America is great because she is good.

There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult - to begin a war and to end it.

The idea of an election is much more interesting to me than the election itself...The act of voting is in itself the defining moment.

History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.

Democracies have been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death.

The slave will be free. Democracy in America will yet be a glorious reality; and when the top-stone of that temple of freedom which our fathers left unfinished shall be brought forth with shoutings and cries of grace unto it, when our now drooping Liberty lifts up her head and prospers, happy will he be who can say, with John Milton, "Among those who have something more than wished her welfare, I, too, have my charter and freehold of rejoicing to me and my heirs."

Society will develop a new kind of servitude which covers the surface of society with a network of complicated rules, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate. It does not tyrannise but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.

Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.

America is a land of wonders, in which everything is in constant motion and every change seems an improvement. No natural boundary seems to be set to the efforts of man; and in his eyes what is not yet done is only what he has not attempted to do. - from Democracy in America

Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them.

Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.

The ballot is stronger than the bullet.

I cannot help fearing that men may reach a point where they look on every new theory as a danger, every innovation as a toilsome trouble, every social advance as a first step toward revolution, and that they may absolutely refuse to move at all.

Take a stand against intolerance and for our American values. Say it with pride: I support democracy in America. I support working people in America. I support opportunity in America. And I support Barack Obama for another four years as president of the United States of America!

Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.

Take not from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.

A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.

The only foundation for . . . a republic is to be laid in Religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.

Without Virtue there can be no liberty

Democracy is four wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.

The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colours breaking through.

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.

A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but won't cross the street to vote in a national election.

The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.

There is in fact a manly and legitimate passion for equality that spurs all men to wish to be strong and esteemed. This passion tends to elevate the lesser to the rank of the greater. But one also finds in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to want to bring the strong down to their level, and which reduces men to preferring equality in servitude to inequality in freedom.

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.

I have sworn upon the altar of god.

I am opposed to any form of tyranny over the mind of man.

We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values.

Furthermore, when citizens are all almost equal, it becomes difficult for them to defend their independence against the aggressions of power.

I have sworn upon the altar of God Eternal, hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

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

He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.