Mohamed ElBaradei Quotes

It is fascinating to watch legislators turn away from their usual corporate grips when they hear the growing thunder of the people.

When the government violates the people's rights, insurrection is, for the people and for each portion of the people, the most sacred of the rights and the most indispensible of duties.

In a democracy, when you have 20 million people in the street, you resign. Unfortunately, we don’t have a process of recall or impeachment as you have. It was a popular uprising rejecting Mr. Morsi’s continuing in power. Unfortunately, people had to call on the army to intervene. The army had to intervene because short of that, we would have ended up in a civil war.

No minister ever stood, or could stand, against public opinion.

It's time for an American comeback... where leaders in Washington listen to 'we the people.'

The American public should simply accept no distractions. In our democracy, it is our duty to hold our elected leaders accountable. We do it at the ballot box.

The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the goverment.

I do strongly believe myself that members of the government who sit in the House of Lords should be accountable to the elected House because otherwise there is a democratic deficit, and that is wrong.

We put together a one-sentence petition asking Congress to censure President Clinton and move on to other pressing issues. We sent it to under 100 friends and family, and within a week we had 100,000 people sign the petition.

We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.

In all our associations; in all our agreements let us never lose sight of this fundamental maxim - that all power was originally lodged in, and consequently is derived from, the people.

If a huge number of people call for change, the government will have to react. If you want to avoid uprisings, or demonstrations, you need to respond to the people's desperate need for change.

With fear of stating the obvious: Freedom belongs to 'We the People,' not 'They the Politicians.'

I don't want to overthrow the government. I wanna fire 'em.

Working Americans who believe in our country and who believe in our Constitution are saying, 'Enough is enough!'

a government which goes counter to the will of the nation must be overthrown at once... It is dangerous to drive the people to despair and force them to demand by violence that which they as yet seek only by constitutional means.

Any government is concerned whenever you have public demonstrations in large measure.

A little rebellion now and then is a good thing.... Unsuccessful rebellions indeed generally establish the encroachment on the rights of people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governments so mild in their punishment of rebellion so as not to discourage them too much.

I have one more problem for your computer. How long will take five hundred thousand angry Americans to climb that White House wall out there and lynch their President if he does something like that?

The only limit to the oppression of government is the power with which the people show themselves capable of opposing it.

The fact that people gather with placards is abnormal. Other countries would not allow that. Our democracy is in many cases excessive.

In a society pledged to self-government, it is never true that, in the long run, the security of the nation is endangered by the people.

In this country the government responds to the people, not the other way around.

We Indians … are so good at respecting outward forms while ignoring the substance. We took the forms of parliamentary democracy, preserved them, put them on pedestal and paid them due obeisance. But we ignored the basic fact that parliamentary democracy can only work if those who run it are constantly responsive to needs of the people and if parliamentarians are qualified enough to legislate. Neither condition was fulfilled in India for long.

The people made this government, and not the government the people. Destroy the intelligence of the people, and the government could not exist for a day; — destroy this government, and the people would create another, and yet another, of no less perfect symmetry.