Sun Yat-sen Quotes

When the body of the people is possessed of the supreme power, it is called a democracy.

Now one of two things is true: Either a republic is a desirable form of government, or else it is not.

If it was not easy to make a king, it will be even more difficult to make a republic in a country where there are no republicans.

The king, in possession of the throne, was the sole representative of sovereignty, the sole representative of power. Not so in a Republic … Here we have no sole representative of power. The ballot box is the instrumentality through which the sovereign power is exercised.

Republics, like other forms of government, exist in history and can rise and fall.

Here, sir, the people govern; here they act by their immediate representatives.

Democracy is a good client.

I'm fed up with democracy. In a democracy, people vote for the mayors. I wanted to build a city where I will choose the citizens.

It is important to remember that some of the most serious thinkers once thought that democracy was not compatible with the cultures of Germany, Italy, Japan, Latin America and Russia.

We're not a democracy.

We make a great mistake in supposing all people are capable of self-government.

Only that Swiss in the heart want still a king or at least a strong Upper House of Parliament. Swiss long themselves for less democracy and more dictatorship.

It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it; consequently, the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning.

I always assume that democracy is the only good form of government, quite frankly, and democracy is always to be preferred.

It's true that most American citizens think of themselves as living in a democratic country. But when was the last time that any Americans actually sat down and came to a collective decision? Maybe if they are ordering pizzas, but basically never.

There is no state with a democracy except Libya on the whole planet.

The essence of a democracy is a free electorate.

Democracy as a system has evolved into something that Thomas Jefferson didn't anticipate.

On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does.

Unlike any other nation, here the people rule, and their will is the supreme law.

In parliamentary and presidential democracies, the chief executive has been elevated from first among equals to the status of a monarch.

In America you elect the electoral college and they select the President. In Russia, the people select the President directly. This is more democratic.

The United States is dangerously close to becoming a democracy instead of a republic.

It depends on the consent of the people to decide whether kings or counsuls or other magistrates are to be established in authority over them, and if there is a legitimate cause, the people can change a kingdom into an aristocracy or an aristocracy into a democracy, and vice versa.

Democracy, which means despair of finding any Heroes to govern you, and contented putting up with the want of them.