Martha Smith Quotes

The people want to go back to the time when democracy was in full bloom.

We love to think this fundamentalism and terrorism is all about poverty, and, of course, it has a connection. You can see that these people not only are poor but they have no outlets. These governments allow no opposition. So what do people do? They go to Islam. It's the only organizational institution where they can express their feelings. But it's not about poverty. I've never seen a single demonstration in which the people have come out with signs saying, "Please give us better roads. Please give us new prenatal clinics. Please give us a new sewage system."

One of the great things about our democracy is it expresses itself in all sorts of ways. And that includes people protesting. I've been the subject of protests during the course of my eight years and I suspect that there's not a president in our history that at some point hasn't been subject to these protests.

It is bad governments, not bad people, who cause revolutions.

Venezuela is a democratically elected government. These people who keep protesting are sore losers.

I can understand that people are not happy, but they should not use football to make their demands heard

There was a hateful video that was disseminated on the Internet. It had nothing to do with the United States government, and it's one that we find disgusting and reprehensible. It's been offensive to many, many people around the world. That sparked violence in various parts of the world, including violence directed against Western facilities including our embassies and consulates.

It is a well known and very important fact that America's founding fathers did not like taxation without representation. It is a lesser known and equally important fact that they did not much like taxation with representation.

Democracy is a system that gives people a chance to elect rascals of their own choice.

Normally that's the kind of thing, even Colin Kaepernick should applaud that, but people don't. And that's quite telling right there, but [Donald] Trump wants to reinstitute that.

I think the fact of the matter is this is a tough moment for democrats. But it's also exciting to see so many people out there mobilized.

You have three people in the White House that are in love with eugenics or whatever it is you would call it today.

People are increasingly concerned about unemployment, but Republicans have nothing to offer them.

I think the best way that we can bring people together is through change in Washington, D.C.

We demand that the government of Canada force Stockwell Day to change his first name to Doris. "Why do this," you may ask? Because it'll be fun.

I voted to send people to war.

The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it.

When everyone is part of the people's congress, what need is there for an opposition? Opposition to what? You oppose a government! If there is no government, and the people govern themselves on their own, what are they going to oppose? Something that isn't there?

Graffiti is only dangerous in the mind of three types of people; politicians, advertising executives and graffiti writers.

When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the United States struck back. She didn't go and bomb - she bombed any part of Japan. She dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. Those people in Hiroshima probably hadn't even, some of them; most of them hadn't even killed anybody.

We can't continue assuming that politics is something which is decided elsewhere by distant leaders in a distant capital. Protest is insufficient too. If people who are willing to put time into demonstrations also prove willing to work on behalf of candidates in local elections - or to become candidates themselves - they will achieve far more. If all of this upheaval provokes more involvement, then we have a slim chance of ending up with more vibrant democracies eventually. The alternative, as you've hinted, is that democracy fails altogether.

Chinese no longer crave so much for food and accommodation, but they do crave democracy. I stand by that. I don't know which model China will follow.

In 1790, the nation which had fought a revolution against taxation without representation discovered that some of its citizens weren't much happier about taxation with representation.

None of this seems to affect the leadership, that people don't go out to vote, that they don't feel the need to go vote, that they already feel disenfranchised. It's not just Obama's fault or Clinton's or whomever's, it's all of them, the whole collection of clowns I've had to sit through.

In four short years he has turned our country from a prosperous nation at peace into a desperately indebted nation at war. But so what? He is the President of the United States, and you're not. Love it or leave it.