William Lloyd Garrison Quotes

Majority rule rests on numbers; democracy rests on the well-grounded assumption that society is neither a collection of units nor an organism but a network of human relations.

In the United States, where the numerical majority have long been in full possession of collective despotism, they would probably be as unwilling to part with it as a single despot or an aristocracy.

An equality of estate will give an equality of power; and an equality of power is a commonwealth, or democracy…

You cannot have a government for and by the people if it is not represented by all of the people.

Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.

It is an essential tenet of our whole representative form of government, the idea that there should not be some tyranny which makes it so nobody can even have a chance to vote.

I've been reading this little book. It's called the Russian constitution. And it says that the only source of power in Russia is the people. So I don't want to hear those who say we're appealing to the authorities. Who's the power here?

Democracy is not about one party dominating.

The principle of democracy is all about delegation of power by the vast majority of citizens through a few chosen representatives chosen on merit and competence.

Democracy is too good to share with just anybody.

No power on earth is greater than a mind and soul reawakened. Our Constitution begins 'we the people', not 'us the government'.

The right of a minority is so important in a democracy.

I'm the one who initiated the democratic process.

Let the people think they govern and they will be governed.

Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.

Democracy may mean something more than a theoretically absolute popular government, but it assuredly cannot mean anything less.

If democracy brings an undemocratic group to power, is that a victory for democracy?

A government of, by and for the people is obligated to conduct the nation's business in a manner that respects dissent.

Democracy is not so much a form of government as a set of principles.

Democracy is the fig leaf of elitism.

A democracy, when put to the strain, grows weak; and it is supplanted by oligarchy [rule by the few].

The evils of popular government appear greater than they are; there is compensation for them in the spirit and energy it awakens.

In our Governments, the real power lies in the majority of the Community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from the acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the constituents.

The consent of the governed" is more than a safeguard against ignorant tyrants: it is an insurance against benevolent despots as well.

Where the government is a government of the people, it is essential that the history be a history of the people. The history of a democracy ought not to be an Iliad.