Emma Goldman Quotes

If voting could change anything, they would have made it illegal.

If Voting Changed Anything, They’d Abolish It

If someone says, 'Democracy is a sham, those people don't speak for me... the system's rigged,' you say, 'Vote.' Someone says, 'I was making a statement by not voting,' and then you say, 'Well I can't hear it.'

In a democracy, dissent is an act of faith.

As an American citizen, one has to vote. If we don't vote, we're not doing our part. We'll become some sort of oligarchy.

Let the People Rule!

Elections are an enduring spectacle of free India, and have provided foreign journalists with the opportunity to remind the world that India remains the world's largest democracy.

For our white members, voting is something they have done for hundreds of years. But for us, it is not such a traumatic thing, because we have never participated in an election.

And in Canada we, you know, it costs us three or $400 million to have an election. You know, it's always been my position that we shouldn't complain about that; that's the price of admission for a living in a great democracy.

When politics is interesting, people go vote.

As long as we're in a democracy, I have to give what I think the majority of people will enjoy.

Well, I couldn't do the day-to-day stuff of being a politician or anything, but I just think everybody should have an opinion and everybody should vote, and that's what we're built on.

Hell, I never vote for anybody, I always vote against.

I don't vote. I don't do no voting.

So long as we have enough people in this country willing to fight for their rights, we'll be called a democracy.

We express our values through politics—through the officials we elect.

Although elections are not perfect tools for democracy, they reinforce the relationship between the people and their leaders, empowering citizens to remove and replace their governments in a peaceful and orderly manner. The only basis for a peaceful society is providing people with the opportunity to express their opinions and their will, and elections are instrumental in doing so.

Voters do not decide issues. They decide who will decide issues.

What we are seeing here is democracy in action.

In a democracy we assume that people can define their own interest and vote that way.

The way to address our grievances is to engage in that most revolutionary of activities—voting.

Opinion and protest are the life breath of democracy—even when it blows heavy.

Voting is the first duty of democracy.

Give all of the governed a voice in their government; that and that alone is self government.

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