Haile Selassie Quotes

Democracy, republics: What do these words signify?

Representative democracy frequently manifests a disconnect between parliamentarians and the people, so that parliamentarians have agendas that do not correspond with the wishes of the electorate. This has led in many countries to apathy, cynicism and large-scale absenteeism in elections. What is needed is not only parliaments, but parliamentarians who genuinely represent the wishes of the electorate.

Here sir, the people govern.

Let the people think they govern and they will be governed.

My message is that Democracy is not an alien invention. It is a way of solving problems in our society.

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

The people want to exercise power but what on earth would they do with it if it were given to them?

Self government cannot work if the people do not know what their rulers are doing and why.

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

Democracy, republics: What do these words signify? What have they changed in the world? Have men become better, more loyal, kinder? Are the people happier? All goes on as before, as always. Illusions, illusions. Besides, one should consider the interest of a nation before subverting it with words. Democracy is necessary in some cases and we believe some African peoples might adopt it. But in other cases it is harmful, a mistake.

You can't have modern states based on ideas which have been out of date for a thousand years.

I'm one of those old cynics that thinks, whoever you vote for, the government always gets in.

I think democracy is not a destination. I don't think socialism is a railway station and if we catch the right train with the right driver, we'll get there. I think it's a way of thinking about things and every generation has to do it again.

If you want to be free, or you want to preserve freedom for people, you both need to have laws that make it so people have freedom of speech and all the freedoms that they need. You also need to have an open governance system where people can vote and people have representation.

We live in a very peculiar world. Democracy isn't discussed, as if it was taken for granted, as if democracy had taken God's place, who is also not discussed.

Republicanism is not the phantom of a deluded imagination. On the contrary, laws, under no form of government, are better supported, liberty and property better secured, or happiness more effectually dispensed to mankind.

Democracy is a gleaming Excalibur - let's not use it just to mend the toaster.

But are we even capable of maintaining a Republic anymore? Are there enough citizens willing to do the hard work that self-rule requires, or have we become a people who would rather be cared for, fed, clothed, housed, and told what's best for us by a parentlike state? Unfortunately, the evidence suggests the latter.

Democracy will never be supplanted by a republic of experts—and that is a very good thing.

We are inclined to confuse freedom and democracy, which we regard as moral principles, with the way in which they are practiced in America with capitalism, federalism, and the two-party system, which are not moral principles but simply the preferred and accepted practices of the American people.

I think most of [people] are not very well educated themselves to understand the Winston Churchill line - democracy is the worst of all governments until you consider all the other ones.

The throne we honour is the people's choice.

It may be affirmed, without extravagance, that the free institutions we enjoy, have developed the powers, and improved the condition, of our whole people, beyond any example in the world.

The government is supposed to respond to the will of the people. Not dictate to the people what they are doing.

Democracy is a word all public men use and none understand.