Michelle Bachelet Quotes

You have to let the people vote when it comes to a new constitution.

A messy participatory process is representative democracy at its best.

In effect the people were present through their representatives, and were themselves, step by step and point by point, acting in the conduct of public affairs. No longer merely an ultimate check on government, they were in some sense the government.

Democracy entails a correlation between the public interest as expressed by a majority of the population and the governmental policies that affect them. The term encompasses various manifestations, including direct, participatory and representative democracy, but Governments must be responsive to people and not to special interests such as the military-industrial complex, financial bankers and transnational corporations. Democracy is inclusive and does not privilege an anthropological aristocracy.

I have a great belief in the future of my people and my country.

You can see over time whether people are prepared to differ or not.

Let me even say before I even get inaugurated, during the transition we are going to be having meetings all across the country with community organizations so that you have input into the agenda for the next presidency of the United States of America.

Our aim is a totally new and just constitutional dispension in which every inhabitant will enjoy equal rights, treatment and opportunity in every sphere of endeavour—constitutional, social and economic.

Self government cannot work if the people do not know what their rulers are doing and why.

Our flag is the symbol of America. I want you to grasp what America really is. It is more than marks on a map. It is more than buildings and land. America is a living structure of human lives, of all the American lives that ever were and ever will be.

The constitution would be based on the rights and duties of man and citizens; on civil liberty and equality; on popular sovereignty by representation; on an energetic and responsible executive government; on a fully unified administration … on the separation of church and state; and the right of the people to revise their own constitution.

Members of Congress are trustees of the people.

The American people get to express themselves, and in the ways that they choose. But I have got to tell you, I - this convention, I have sensed a tremendous amount of energy, a tremendous amount of unity, not around the personalities, but around the choice that we face in the fall.

There is a tendency of the American people to give those who are elected an opportunity to carry out their policies and programs.

I don't support direct democracy because I want a life, and that means I want to select people who work for me who do that sort of work for me.

We cannot have government for all the people until we first make certain it is government of and by all the people.

As a producer, you have an opportunity to see the whole and bring people together.

The proper way to make policy decisions under our Constitution in America is for the people to do so through the democratic process.

The answer to one is the answer to all. Government by 'the people' is expedient or it is not. If it is expedient, then obviously all the people must be included.

We all teach from that same frame of reference. We're like neighborhood - the people who have had the opportunity through this music to gain a platform and spread the message of this music, which is basically love in a form of communication that's honest and truthful.

In a certain sense, and to a certain extent, he [the president] is the representative of the people. He is elected by them, as well as congress is. But can he, in the nature [of] things, know the wants of the people, as well as three hundred other men, coming from all the various localities of the nation? If so, where is the propriety of having a congress?

As I reflect back on what's worked for me in this [presidential] office it's been that I've gotten people who maybe didn't believe in the process to get engaged. Ironically, I've even gotten the other side that maybe didn't believe in the process to get engaged.

Religion is about increasing peace and harmony in the world. ... People of all different religions should be given the opportunity to pursue good in their own way.

An informed public democracy means rule of the people. A media system is absolutely essential to that process, if people are going to be political equals, they to have to have the information and tools so they can actually be participants. That's liberal democracy 101.

First and foremost, that I will, obviously, be the president of all the people, as opposed to one segment. When you look at some of the appointments, there's great concern because does it really represent all the people, and somehow figuring out how to bring the nation together.