Charles James Fox Quotes

A good constitution is infinitely better than the best despot.

Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East.

The revolutionary government is the despotism of liberty

Democracy is our commitment. It is our great legacy, a legacy we simply cannot compromise. Democracy is in our DNA.

In the blood-heat of pursuing the enemy, many people are forgetting what we are fighting for. We are fighting for our hard-won liberty and freedom; for our Constitution and the due processes of our laws; and for the right to differ in ideas, religion and politics. I am convinced that in your zeal to fight against our enemies, you, too, have forgotten what you are fighting for.

It has taken seas of blood to drown the idol of despotism, but the English do not think they bought their laws too dearly.

I tell the American people solemnly that the United States will never survive as a happy and fertile oasis of liberty surrounded by a cruel desert of dictatorship.

Democracy, disciplined and enlightened, is the finest thing in the world.

In a free country every man thinks he has a concern in all public matters,--that he has a right to form and a right to deliver an opinion on them. This it is that fills countries with men of ability in all stations.

A good leader leads with compassion and love, not fear and blood. A country that harms its people because they are not happy with the leader -- is not a country that belongs to the people, but to the leader.

I say further that for this great legislative body to ignore the Constitution and the fundamental concepts of our governmental system is to act in a manner which could ultimately destroy the freedom of all American citizens, including the freedoms of the very persons whose feelings and whose liberties are the major subject of this legislation.

I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out.

We are fighting to save a great and precious form of government for ourselves and for the world.

America's heart and soul is more embedded in our love of liberty, self-reliance, and tolerance than by our foreign policy, driven by powerful special interests with little regard for the Constitution.

By their complying with your request to leave they [the LDS members in Clay County] are surrendering some of the dearest rights guaranteed in the Constitution of our country; and that human nature can be driven to a certain extent when it will yield no further.

A constitution, as important as it is, will mean nothing unless the people are yearning for liberty and freedom.

I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way.

What Tunisia urgently needs, is freedom and the building of a real democracy.

Democracy, the practice of self-government, is a covenant among free men to respect the rights and liberties of their fellows.

This country to-day [is] the last stronghold of freedom, standing like a rock in a tide that is threatened to submerge the world.

I know of no example in time or place of a society that has been marked by a large measure of political freedom, and that has not also used something comparable to a free market to organize the bulk of economic activity.

Revolution was written into the U.S. Constitution so it's like they're in a constant state of revolution. But then again, happiness is written into their constitution as well, which makes them pretty unique.

Democracy is a great institution and, therefore, it is liable to be greatly abused.

A country whose population has been trained to accept the government's word and to shun those who question it is a country without liberty in its future.

Fascism is more of a natural state than democracy. To assume blithely that we can export democracy into any country we choose can serve paradoxically to encourage more fascism at home and abroad. Democracy is a state of grace that is attained only by those countries who have a host of individuals not only ready to enjoy freedom but to undergo the heavy labor of maintaining it.