P. J. O'Rourke Quotes

Given political history in Chile, it seemed to me that there was a critical task of consolidating a democracy and creating healthy civic-military and political-military relationships.

When a people, having become free, establish wise laws, their revolution is complete.

I'm not going to impose my vision on the people of Puerto Rico.

I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.

What my job is, is to get on with getting the process of democratic politics, back on the road, entrenching the peace settlement, and I ask you to judge me on my record.

I sent American troops to Iraq to make its people free, not to make them American. Iraqis will write their own history and find their own way.

Further more Yemen is leading pioneer in democratic practice, lots of brothers and friends testified on that.

No new state is ever fully ready for independence ..

My son İbrahim is old and sick, my grandson Abbas is lazy and indolent, and then children will rule Egypt. How will they keep Egypt?

The stronger the hold we are able to keep here the better the inhabitants will be pleased... They can't conceive an independent Arab government. Nor, I confess, can I. There is no one here who could run it

Democratic self-government has manifestly brought benefits to India, Japan, Norway, Switzerland, South Africa, South Korea, and scores of nations all making their way in the world.

The primary problem in many modernizing societies is not liberty but the creation of a legitimate public order. Men may, of course, have order without liberty, but they cannot have liberty without order.

The Sudanese people decide who rules them.

The example that America knows how to govern itself is one of the compelling aspects of our national security.

You cannot have democracy without the institutions. You cannot have a democracy that is built on the moods of self-interested people.

Africa doesn't need strongmen, it needs strong institutions.

If there is a single trait in our character that has historically set us apart from other nations, it is our determination to limit the authority of those who rule over us.

Trust the people -- that is the crucial lesson of history.

We exist, and are quoted, as standing proofs that a government, so modeled as to rest continually on the will of the whole society, is a practicable government.

Constitutional democracy has created astonishing and apparently irreversible social progress. All we're interested in is talking about when government doesn't work.

A republican form of government, without intelligence in the people, must be, on a vast scale, what a mad-house, without superintendent or keepers, would be on a small one.

Only a developed society, for example, only a strong democratic system in modern conditions can create a climate in which any manifestation of terrorism is unacceptable and can also make the state itself stronger.

We're getting to the point where we're impinging on democratic institutions in this country and I think, you know, it takes a certain - not a suspension of disbelief - but willingness to go along with other people to get the ship of state going forward. I'm not sure that happens in a [Donald] Trump presidency, frankly.

If you have an informed electorate, it makes great choices.

It would be folly to argue that the people cannot make political mistakes. They can and do make grave mistakes. They know it, they pay the penalty, but compared with the mistakes which have been made by every kind of autocracy they are unimportant.