Nancy Pelosi Quotes

The amazing fact is that America is founded on a document. It's a work in progress. It can be tested by each generation.

This is one of the finest expressions of U. S. democracy at work.

We are a country that does better when we do debate and air our differences.

I think the people should demand accountability on the voting. I think there's no point in voting if you're not gonna demand fairness and be able to verify each vote. And other countries can do this fairly easily. So I don't think you really want democracy if you're not willing to take that first step.

I think it's a part of being a citizen in a country, to know what is going on and to have a say in how they want their country being run. You know, that's a part of the privilege of democracy.

I actually do not think that's how what's happening to our government is going to be stopped. I think people who are willing to be civically engaged and believe in the promises and the progress of the last fifty years that will save this country.

You do not keep American democracy in suspense. Because, look, too many people have marched and protested and fought and died for this democracy.

There are people working their butts off trying to save our republic and save democracy from the likes of powerful people in the Democrat Party who want to take this country and turn it into a personal little playground for their own private gain.

I believe that without looking at each other as rivals or as competitors, in a democratic India, operating in the framework of an open economy, an open society has, I think, some significance for developing countries, not only in Asia but outside Asia.

There is no more important task in a democracy than resolving the differences among people and finding a course of action that will be supported by a sufficient number to permit the nation to achieve a better life for all.

Nothing frightens the 'Jews' more than a perfect unity in others: the unity of feeling in a movement, in a people. That is why they will always be for 'democracy' which has but one advantage, and that one for the nation's enemy. For democracy will break up the unity and spirit of a people.

I've always followed politics, and I think politics is everybody's business because we're electing someone who's going to be making important decisions that will affect all of our lives.

The best defence [for a democracy, for the public good] is aggressiveness, the aggressiveness of the involved citizen. We need to reassert that slow, time-consuming, inefficient, boring process that requires our involvement; it is called 'being a citizen.' The public good is not something that you can see. It is not static. It is a process. It is the process by which democratic civilizations build themselves.

Silence is not an effective political strategy, and what we do if we silence the public interest, which is so hard to hear anyway, is that we silence ourselves and then we do not have a democracy.

In countries where democracy is either non-existent or in development, on the other hand, citizens crave those freedoms. Maybe that is one lesson Western citizens can learn from those countries: treasure what you have. Use your rights and freedoms to effect the change you want.

But all should know that the people's participation in the elections will take the country forward ... an election full of excitement will be a major blow to the enemy.

Good citizenship and defending democracy means living up to the ideals and values that make this country great.

Our civilization is locked in the grip of an ideology - corporatism. An ideology that denies and undermines the legitimacy of individuals as the citizen in a democracy. The particular imbalance of this ideology leads to a worship of self-interest and a denial of the public good. The practical effects on the individual are passivity and conformism in the areas that matter, and non-conformism in the areas that don't

I think one of the core ideas in America has always been conversation and being able to question our systems of government, and being able to dictate our own communities and how we want this country to work. And I feel like we're losing part of that because of the way that even our current political campaign is centered more around celebrity than anything else, and so we're kind of losing conversation. We're still having conversations, but they seem to be more about like Donald Trump's hair and like memes of his face more than anything else.

The aspirations of democracy are based on the notion of an informed citizenry, capable of making wise decisions. The choices we are asked to make become increasingly complex. They require the longer-term thinking and greater tolerance for ambiguity that science fosters. The new economy is predicated on a continuous pipeline of scientific and technological innovation. It can not exist without workers and consumers who are mathematically and scientifically literate.

Democracy demands that little men should not take big ones too seriously; it dies when it is full of little men who think they are big themselves.

It would be easy to descend into despair, not only about the state of journalism, but the future of American democracy. But giving up is not an option. There is too much at stake.

Voting in this country has essentially been relegated to a very fledging group of election officials, who receive no training and operate on shoestring budgets on one hand, and political consultants whose job is to get their candidates elected on the other. And when you have that kind of scenario, it's really hard to describe yourself as a vibrant democracy. It's an embarrassment.

Democratic institutions generally give men a lofty notion of their country and themselves.

Am I embarrassed to speak for a less than perfect democracy? Not one bit. Find me a better one. Do I suppose there are societies which are free of sin? No, I don't. Do I think ours is, on balance, incomparably the most hopeful set of human relations the world has? Yes, I do.