"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy?"
— Mahatma Gandhi

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!"
— Benjamin Franklin

"You have to remember one thing about the will of the people: it wasn't that long ago that we were swept away by the Macarena."
— Jon Stewart

"Sometimes you have to pick the Gun up to put the Gun down"
— Malcolm X

"If someone puts their hands on you make sure they never put their hands on anybody else again."
— Malcolm X

"You show me a capitalist, and I'll show you a bloodsucker"
— Malcolm X

"Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners."
— Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

"The first duty of a man is to think for himself"
— José Martí

"The America of my time line is a laboratory example of what can happen to democracies, what has eventually happened to all perfect democracies throughout all histories. A perfect democracy, a ‘warm body’ democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally, has no internal feedback for self-correction. It depends solely on the wisdom and self-restraint of citizens… which is opposed by the folly and lack of self-restraint of other citizens. What is supposed to happen in a democracy is that each sovereign citizen will always vote in the public interest for the safety and welfare of all. But what does happen is that he votes his own self-interest as he sees it… which for the majority translates as ‘Bread and Circuses.’

‘Bread and Circuses’ is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader—the barbarians enter Rome."
— Robert A. Heinlein (To Sail Beyond the Sunset)

"The only way we'll get freedom for ourselves is to identify ourselves with every oppressed people in the world. We are blood brothers to the people of Brazil, Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba -- yes Cuba too."
— Malcolm X

"In politics as in religion, my tenets are few and simple. The leading one of which, and indeed that which embraces most others, is to be honest and just ourselves and to exact it from others, meddling as little as possible in their affairs where our own are not involved. If this maxim was generally adopted, wars would cease and our swords would soon be converted into reap hooks and our harvests be more peaceful, abundant, and happy."
— George Washington

"Democracy! Bah! When I hear that I reach for my feather boa!"
— Allen Ginsberg

"The Revolution introduced me to art, and in turn, art introduced me to the Revolution!"
— Albert Einstein

"Everything is relative in this world, where change alone endures."
— Leon Trotsky

"The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end.
"
— Leon Trotsky

"Despair is typical of those who do not understand the causes of evil, see no way out, and are incapable of struggle."
— Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

"Free election of masters does not abolish the masters or the slaves."
— Herbert Marcuse

"In a room where
people unanimously maintain
a conspiracy of silence,
one word of truth
sounds like a pistol shot."
— Czesław Miłosz

"A child who does not think about what happens around him and is content with living without wondering whether he lives honestly is like a man who lives from a scoundrel's work and is on the road to being a scoundrel."
— José Martí

"Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors."
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all."
— Adam Smith

"But love, like the sun that it is, sets afire and melts everything. what greed and privilege to build up over whole centuries the indignation of a pious spirit, with its natural following of oppressed souls, will cast down with a single shove.
"
— José Martí

"Being human means throwing your whole life on the scales of destiny when need be, all the while rejoicing in every sunny day and every beautiful cloud."
— Rosa Luxemburg

"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."
— Aldous Huxley

"Social conservatism and neoconservatism have revived authoritarian conservatism, and not for the better of conservatism or American democracy. True conservatism is cautious and prudent. Authoritarianism is rash and radical. American democracy has benefited from true conservatism, but authoritarianism offers potentially serious trouble for any democracy. "
— John W. Dean (Conservatives Without Conscience)

"... it is the people who control the Government, not the Government the
people."
— Winston S. Churchill

"Unity is a great thing and a great slogan. But what the workers’ cause needs is the unity of Marxists, not unity between Marxists, and opponents and distorters of Marxism."
— Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

"...I do not want art for a few; any more than education for a few; or freedom for a few... "
— William Morris

"I knew I was alone in a way that no earthling has ever been before."
— Michael Collins

"Gandhi is the other person. I believe Gandhi is the only person who knew about real democracy — not democracy as the right to go and buy what you want, but democracy as the responsibility to be accountable to everyone around you. Democracy begins with freedom from hunger, freedom from unemployment, freedom from fear, and freedom from hatred. To me, those are the real freedoms on the basis of which good human societies are based."
— Vandana Shiva

"High hopes were once formed of democracy; but democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people."
— Oscar Wilde

"Democracies should be a delirium of choices - more options, not fewer; more avenues to travel, not fewer."
— B.W. Powe (Towards a Canada of Light)

"I really am a pessimist. I've always felt that fascism is a more natural governmental condition than democracy. Democracy is a grace. It's something essentially splendid because it's not at all routine or automatic. Fascism goes back to our infancy and childhood, where we were always told how to live. We were told, Yes, you may do this; no, you may not do that. So the secret of fascism is that it has this appeal to people whose later lives are not satisfactory."
— Norman Mailer

". . . the only legitimate reason that kingship is not attractive to us is because in this age and this world the only kings available are finite and sinful. Listen to C. S. Lewis describe why he believes in democracy:

A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in the government. The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they’re not true. . . I find that they’re not true without looking further than myself. I don’t deserve a share in governing a hen-roost, much less a nation. . . . The real reason for democracy is . . . Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.1

If there could be a king who is not limited in his wisdom and power and goodness and love for his subjects, then monarchy would be the best of all governments. If such a ruler could ever rise in the world—with no weakness, no folly, no sin—then no wise and humble person would ever want democracy again.

The question is not whether God broke into the universe as a king. He did. The question is: What kind of king is he? What difference would his kingship make for you?

[from: http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibra... ]"
— John Piper

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

"I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run."
— Alexis de Tocqueville (Tocqueville: Democracy in America)

"And I apologize to all of you who are the same age as my grandchildren. And many of you reading this are the same age as my grandchildren. They, like you, are being royally shafted and lied to by our Baby Boomer corporations and government."
— Kurt Vonnegut (A Man Without a Country)

"Wo ein Klima der Überwachung und Bespitzelung herrscht, kann ein freier und offener demokratischer Prozess nicht stattfinden."
— Heribert Prantl (Der Terrorist als Gesetzgeber. Wie man mit Angst Politik macht)

"Nirgendwo werden aus vermeintlichen Absurditäten so schnell Normalitäten wie auf dem Gebiet der Inneren Sicherheit."
— Heribert Prantl (Der Terrorist als Gesetzgeber. Wie man mit Angst Politik macht)

"Um dem Terrorismus kein weiteres Terrain zu überlassen, ist der Staat von vornherein gezwungen, feste, von keiner Seite überschreitbare Grenzlinien des rechtsstaatlich Möglichen zu ziehen."
— Horst Herold

"[N]icht durch Reden und Majoritätsbeschlüsse werden die großen Fragen der Zeit entschiedenen [...] sondern durch Eisen und Blut."
— Otto Bismarck

"Der Staat, der nur wegen und aus der Freiheit seiner Menschen besteht, darf sich nicht gegen seine Schöpfer wenden."
— Heribert Prantl (Der Terrorist als Gesetzgeber. Wie man mit Angst Politik macht)

"In einem freien Staat müssen Zunge und Meinung frei sein."
— Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus

"Der Endzweck des Staates ist [...] im Grund die Freiheit."
— Benedictus de Spinoza

"Wenn die Menschen um ihre Freiheit kämpfen, erhalten sie durch ihren Sieg selten neue Herren."
— Lord Halifax

"Ohne Gedankenfreiheit gibt es keine Weisheit. Und ohne Redefreiheit keine öffentliche Freiheit."
— Benjamin Franklin