A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the people discover they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy - to be followed by a dictatorship.

Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

Democracy is not the law of the majority but the protection of the minority.

The price of democracy is eternal vigilance.

Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.

A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.

Democracy is a process by which the people are free to choose the man who will get the blame.

The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.

Democracy is not just the right to vote, it is the right to live in dignity.

The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.

Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be.

In a democracy, the individual enjoys not only the ultimate power but carries the ultimate responsibility.

Democracy is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people.

The ballot is stronger than the bullet.

Democracy is not about making people happy; it's about making them free.

A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be great or a democracy.

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.

The cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy.

Democracy is not a spectator sport, it's a participatory event. If we don't participate in it, it ceases to be a democracy.

Democracy is the only system capable of reflecting the humanist premise of equilibrium or balance. The key to its secret is the involvement of the citizen.

Democracy is a system that says people have the right to be wrong, and that's not a small thing.

The strength of a democracy is not in the rights it grants the majority, but in the protections it guarantees the minority.

Democracy is the political system where you can say what you think even if you don't think.

Democracy is a system that forces us to tolerate people we can't stand for the sake of principles we can't abandon.