Youichi Ito Quotes

One of the distinctions between democracy and other forms of government is that while democracy is messy on the surface, other forms of government are messy underneath.

Democracy is good, provided the government can function.

Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

There are a lot of benefits representative of government and it is far better than any type of dictatorial system and it is far better than a one-man rule situation.

Democracy is only tolerable because no other system is.

The litmus test of democracy is the subordination of military power to civilian authority …

The American system is no longer a democracy. Democracy is based on accountability and it's not there now.

Democracy is slow … A king can always outrun a congressman.

Democracy doesn't mean electing a dictator every five years.

Democracy is more than just having free elections. It's having political structures.

We need a strong state but we need a democratic one.

A constitutional democracy like ours is perhaps the most difficult of man's social arrangements to manage successfully. Our scheme of society is more dependent than any other form of government on knowledge and wisdom and self-discipline for the achievement of its aims. For our democracy implies the reign of reason on the most extensive scale.

Democracy cannot be created out of thin air

Democracy sounded well and good, but its results are seen not to agree at all with its title. Monarchy, on the contrary, has an unpleasant sound, but is a more practical form of government to live under. For it is easier to find a single excellent man, than to find many of them.

Democracy is not a form of government. It is a political philosophy that can be embodied in various systems of government.

Democracy, in a word, is meant to be an aristocracy which has broadened into a universal aristocracy.

The Americans are the first people whom heaven has favored with an opportunity of deliberating upon and choosing forms of government under which they should live.

Democracies are much better at adapting to modernization than other systems.

Democracies have to be careful that they do not become so process-driven.

Democracy is an interesting, even laudable, notion and there is no question but that when compared to Communism, which is too dull, or Fascism, which is too exciting, it emerges as the most palatable form of government.

Democracies, unlike dictatorships, are forgiving and generous, but they cannot survive unless they fight.

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.

There are three species of government: republican, monarchical, and despotic.

Democracy is the wholesome and pure air without which a socialist public organization cannot live a full-blooded life.

Thou shalt never recognize as the legitimate government of the country any other than that which is elected by the free and spontaneous will of the peoples, and the republican system being the most adaptable to the government of the Americas, thou shalt try by all means within thy power to have the peoples adopt it.