James Madison Quotes

When people generally are aware of a problem, it can be said to have entered the public consciousness. When people get on their hind legs and holler, the problem has not only entered the public consciousness -- it has also become a part of the public conscience. At that point, things in our democracy begin to hum.

Stand up, be counted. We have the numbers.

One person alone can't do anything as important as bringing genuine democracy to a country.

I have always believed that on important issues, the leaders must lead. Where the leaders fail to lead, and people are really concerned about it, the people will take the lead and make the leaders follow.

The power to shape Oregon's future remains where it has always been - in our collective hands.

Governments are sails, the people is the wind, the state is the boat, and time is the sea.

Democracy must be internally generated. You cannot force it from the top - it's not going to work.

We can't wait until elections to fight for what we care about. We can't hope for a benevolent leader who may choose to listen to us. We need a network that lets the best ideas and leaders rise to the top through an open, inclusive democratic process.

I'm convinced democracy will grow from the ground up, from the community.

What the Labour movement is about is a broad mass of people actively engaged in a democratic process.

I have stopped waiting on our leaders. We have been forced to fear the system. But unless we change our ways and the way we see each other, we won't move forward.

Politicians would only move beyond gestures once there was a critical mass of informed citizens.

The movers and shakers on our planet, aren't the billionaires and generals, they are the incredible numbers of people around the world filled with love for neighbor and for the earth who are resisting, remaking, restoring, renewing and revitalising.

We have got to mobilize people and rethink our commitment in terms of what our role is in the political process.

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.

It's not a matter of just what we don't like and who we are most afraid of. We need an affirmative agenda if we're going to move forward as a democracy.

Always, at every period, the few were the banner bearers of a great idea, of liberating effort. Not so the mass, the leaden weight of which does not let it move.

Where progress has been made, wherever any kind of injustice has been overturned, it’s been because people acted as citizens, and not as politicians. They didn’t just moan. They worked, they acted, they organized, they rioted if necessary to bring their situation to the attention of people in power. And that’s what we have to do today.

As Bernie Sanders said himself, it's a movement, not a man. And that movement continues to move into our campaign.

Voting isn't the most we can do. But it is the least.

You could really belong to a group of people and with other people, you could really make some significant changes - through the electoral process, of course, by registering people to vote, and by supporting good people who were running for office. For me, it was like I had found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Democracy is never a thing done. Democracy is always something that a nation must be doing.

It is important to show up. Showing up at marches and rallies and town halls and protests. I remember I was really quite sad from Election Night last year until Jan. 20. And then I remember waking up Jan. 21 and seeing these amazing Women's Marches across America, and I thought to myself, That's the country that I know. And that's a larger populist movement that I'm seeing than Donald Trump's relatively small populist movement. And that gave me a lot of hope and energy, and from that day forward, I've taken a view that we'll flip the House next year.

This is what people do in America. They get out. They demonstrate. They let their voices with heard.