Gail Sheehy Quotes

We have to implant democracies where there are now dictatorships.

Even in a society as tightly controlled as Singapore's, the market creates certain forces which perhaps in the long run may lead to democracy.

Chinese citizens have never had the right to really express their opinions; in the constitution it says you can, but in the real world it is more dangerous. In the west people think it's a right they're born with. Here it's a right given by the government, and one that's not really practised.

A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty.

We had a revolution 2 years ago, and we see a people moving from a completely authoritarian system into a democracy. They don’t know how democracy works. They don’t know the ingredients of a democracy.

The revolutionary government is the despotism of liberty

Let's not pretend we have too much of a democracy here, because we don't.

Democracy will not come to Mexico as the result of supposedly optimal policies prescribed by self-appointed saviors bent on economic stabilization.

The idea that if governments open up and become more democratic they will fall is a false dilemma.

Free speech is too dangerous to a democracy to be permitted

Are our competitors - for example, China, which is a deeply authoritarian nation - becoming more authoritarian or more liberal over time?

Several experts on the Middle East concur that the Middle East cannot be democratized.

Right now, we have no possibility of politics because we have a one-party state.

Despite all the gains for democracy in the world, in many countries anyone who wants to publish truths unwelcome to the government risks suppression and criminal punishment.

Every one of the world's dictatorships can and does claim to be acting in the name of the people.

The Framers of the Constitution knew that free speech is the friend of change and revolution. But they also knew that it is always the deadliest enemy of tyranny.

A state of society where men may not speak their minds cannot long endure.

I don't see democracy getting better. I see democracy diminishing. More rules, more legislation. Eventually governments will see everything.

Almost every country in Africa has now instituted multi-party democracy.

The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting.

I don't believe in democracy by bayonet.

There is no reason for the government to limit political speech.

Perhaps the fact that we have seen millions voting themselves into complete dependence on a tyrant has made our generation understand that to choose one's government is not necessarily to secure freedom.

I decided to go into politics because of our Soviet-style government.

For me every ruler is alien that defies public opinion.