Democracy Quotes

“In theory, America was more equal than ever before, but the reality continued to tell a different story. Lyndon Johnson argued that the country could not be satisfied with this paradox. As he put it, “You do not wipe away the scars of centuries by saying: Now you are free to go where you want, and do as you desire, and choose the leaders you please. You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, ‘you are free to compete with all the others,’ and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.”
― Condoleezza Rice, Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom

“You have to tell people the truth,” he said. “It is worse when you hide it and they find out anyway.”
― Condoleezza Rice, Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom

“experiencing dramatic and sudden change. We entered the town square where one hundred thousand Polish workers had gathered. They were waving American flags and shouting, “Bush, Bush, Bush… Freedom, Freedom, Freedom.” I turned to my colleague Robert Blackwill of the National Security Council staff and said, “This is not exactly what Karl Marx meant when he said, ‘Workers of the world unite.’” But, indeed, they had “nothing to lose but their chains.” Two months later, the Polish Communist Party gave way to a Solidarity-led government.”
― Condoleezza Rice, Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom

“Democratic transitions do not succeed suddenly, and, conversely, they do not fail in one moment either. There are, in retrospect, important inflection points that might have taken a different turn.”
― Condoleezza Rice, Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom

“But in the final analysis it doesn’t matter whether they were Christian believers, Deists, or atheists: Their intention was to create a system of governance that prohibited the privileging of one set of beliefs over another and allowed citizens the freedom to choose and practice religion without the interference of the state.”
― Condoleezza Rice, Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom

“Madison and others reserved their harshest criticism for state religions obsessed with earthly wealth and power. Their argument was two-pronged: State religion was bad for the individual citizen, interfering with his most basic and personal of choices, and it was bad for religion, condemning the church to worldliness and corruption.”
― Condoleezza Rice, Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom

“the Founders were concerned that the will of the people could easily become the preferences of the mob.”
― Condoleezza Rice, Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom

“if the nation were to be stable, individual rights had to be exercised according to rules that all people could understand and trust.”
― Condoleezza Rice, Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom

“As James Madison put it in Federalist No. 40, “The choice must always be made, if not one of the lesser evil, at least of the GREATER, not the PERFECT good.” And in the last of the Federalist Papers, he said, “I never expect to see a perfect work from imperfect man.”
― Condoleezza Rice, Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom

“The paradox of democracy is that its stability is born of its openness to upheaval through elections, legislation, and social action. Disruption is built into the fabric of democracy.”
― Condoleezza Rice, Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom