Shirin Ebadi Quotes

Democracy is not a fragile flower; still it needs cultivating.

Of course democracy is good, but it is a process, not a prescription.

Democracy is much too important to be left to public opinion.

Democracy must be conceived as a process, not a goal.

If democracy is such a good thing, let's have more of it.

Popular and democratic government is the only constitution which suits France, and all those who are worthy of the name of men.

In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for. Now, as always, they stand for democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not subjection; and against a dictatorship by mob rule and the over-privileged alike.

India has remained a full, functioning democracy.

Democracy is a life, and involves continual struggle.

Democracy is morose, and runs to anarchy.

When we define democracy now it must still be as a thing hoped for but not seen.

It is democracy I am really suffering from as much as I am suffering from the opposition.

Democracy is the superior form of government, because it is based on a respect for man as a reasonable being.

It's hard in all countries. Democracy is hard, but it's better than the alternatives.

Democracy is good for everybody.

This democracy of ours, which sometimes we've treated so lightly, is more than ever a comfortable cloak, so let us not tear it asunder, for no man knows, once it is destroyed, where or when he will find its protective warmth again.

Democracy is the right choice and is the greatest form of government ever created.

Democracy, disciplined and enlightened, is the finest thing in the world.

Part of the reason we like democracy is it's the portfolio of decades, which is to say you don't also get the disastrous dictator who completely destroys a society, engages you in wars and so forth.

We are fighting to save a great and precious form of government for ourselves and for the world.

A democracy is a compromise by its nature. It's not a dictatorship.

Democracy is alive, and like any other living thing it either flourishes and grows or withers and dies. There is no in-between. It is freedom and life or dictatorship and death.

If there’s not a good feedback loop from the people to the government, and if you have rule of the bureaucrat — if the bureaucracy is in charge, then what meaning does democracy actually have? If the people cannot vote and have their will be decided by their elected representatives in the form of the president and the Senate and the House, then we don’t live in a democracy. We live in a bureaucracy.

Freedom to vote is valuable primarily as a means to safeguard other freedoms.

The great constitutional corrective in the hands of the people against usurpation of power, or corruption by their agents is the right of suffrage; and this when used with calmness and deliberation will prove strong enough.