Catholic Association for International Peace Quotes

The freedom to persuade and suggest is the essence of the democratic process.

In a democracy, dissent is an act of faith.

The ministry of interior may censor newspapers and ban them if they include anything that violates public security, threatens national unity, or contradicts Islam.

Courts are all that stand between us and anarchy.

If all mankind, minus one, were of one opinion ..., mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power would be justified in silencing mankind.

A democratic society cannot tolerate mob rule.

Many of the best parts of America's history would have been impossible without police. All the freedoms we enjoy - freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from fear - sit on a foundation of public safety.

The measure of the state's success is that the word anarchy frightens people, while the word state does not.

No civilized society can long exist, with an active power in its bosom that is stronger than the law.

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 think that, as Americans, we should never forget that when we tamper with freedom of speech, it is a very sensitive issue that affects all of our constitutional rights and privileges.

I do not want the voice of the people shut out.

The current total of countries in the world with First Amendments is one. You have guaranteed freedom of speech. Other countries don't have that.

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.

You may not be aware of a recent survey that showed that if the First Amendment were put to a popular vote today, it would fail by a 60% to 40% vote.

If there are people who act outside the law, then the state must use legal means to impose law in the interests of majority. That's the way it's done in the U.S., and that's the way it's done in Russia.

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

Democracy... is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder; and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.

Democracy is an imperfect way of steering between the violence of anarchy and the violence of tyranny, with the least violence you can get away with.

Democracy—the essential thing as distinguished from this or that democratic government—was primarily an attitude of mind, a spiritual testament, and not an economic structure or a political machine. The testament involved certain basic beliefs—that the personality was sacrosanct, which was the meaning of liberty; that policy should be settled by free discussion; that normally a minority should be ready to yield to a majority, which in turn should respect a minority’s sacred things.

Democracy is the form of government in which the free are rulers.

The notion that the church, the press, and the universities should serve the state is essentially a Communist notion. In a free society these institutions must be wholly free—which is to say that their function is to serve as checks upon the state.

The notion that a person's constitutional rights may be subject to a majority vote is itself anathema.

You ought not in a free country to lay a tax on the expression of political opinion.

The majority are not morally free to become a tyranny and destroy the rights of minorities.