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Democracy Quotes and Quotations
 Democracy is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people.  In a democracy, the opposition is not only tolerated as constitutional, but must be maintained because it is indispensable. It has been said that Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. Democracy is based on the conviction that man has the moral and intellectual capacity, as well as the inalienable right, to govern himself with reason and justice. If you want to understand democracy, spend less time in the library with Plato, and more time in the buses with people. Democracy is a small hard core of common agreement, surrounded by a rich variety of individual differences. People often say that, in a democracy, decisions are made by a majority of the people. Of course, that is not true. Decisions are made by a majority of those who make themselves heard and who vote - a very different thing. Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated. My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular. It is the greatest good to the greatest number which is the measure of right and wrong. The greatest blessing of our democracy is freedom. But in the last analysis, our only freedom is the freedom to discipline ourselves. Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time. The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal. What men value in the world is not rights, but privileges. As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Democracy is a festival of mediocrity. The job of a citizen is to keep his mouth open. It would be folly to argue that the people cannot make political mistakes. They can and do make grave mistakes. They know it, they pay the penalty, but compared with the mistakes which have been made by every kind of autocracy they are unimportant. Democracy is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people. The world must be made safe for democracy. Democracy is the government of the people, by the people, for the people. Democracy means not "I am as good as you are," but "You are as good as I am." All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy. I believe in Democracy because it releases the energies of every human being. While democracy must have its organization and controls, its vital breath is individual liberty. 
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