Vladimir Putin Quotes

One single constitution cannot hold good for each and every republic.

It's hard in all countries. Democracy is hard, but it's better than the alternatives.

From literature to ecology, from the escape velocity of galaxies to the greenhouse effect, from garbage disposal methods to traffic jams, everything is discussed in our world. But the democratic system, as if it were a given fact, untouchable by nature until the end of time, we don't discuss that.

Democratic institutions, even in the oldest operating democracy in the world, are anything but perfect.

But I think we need to remember that democracy everywhere is by its nature incomplete, a work in progress.

History proves that all dictatorships, all authoritarian forms of government are transient. Only democratic systems are not transient. Whatever the shortcomings, mankind has not devised anything superior.

It is time for the world, the hemisphere and the region to make sure that relevant institutions of civil society and relevant laws are embedded in the mechanisms of governance.

Democracy doesn't recognize east or west; democracy is simply people's will. Therefore, I do not acknowledge that there are various models of democracy; there is just democracy itself.

The Democratic Party is a house of many mansions. It is a body which is extremely important in representing all kinds of people in all parts of the country who have very broad and very different views.

The main division in the world is between democratic and undemocratic countries.

International institutions ought to be, as the national ones in democratic countries, established by the peoples and for the peoples.

Historically, cohesive political parties have been the glue that enables democratic political systems like ours to make the decisions needed to govern.

Democracy is more than just having free elections. It's having political structures.

Free elections are only one part of democracy. Constraint on the power of government and the rule of law and the institutions of democracy are just as important.

No idea holds greater sway in the minds of educated Americans that the belief that it is possible to democratize governments anytime and anywhere under any circumstances .

Democracy is not a form of government. It is a political philosophy that can be embodied in various systems of government.

Democracies are much better at adapting to modernization than other systems.

We can moralize all day about how we want ideal citizens to be, but democracy is most secure, and tolerance is maximized, when we design systems to accommodate how people actually are.

I have no idea if some societies, anthropologically speaking, aren't really suited for democracy. I don't think that's true.

The case for democracy is not esthetic.

But our perfect democracy, which neither needs nor particularly wants voters, is a rarity. It is important to remember there still exist many other forms of government in the world today, and that dozens of foreign governments still long for a democracy such as ours to be imposed on them.

I think that rather than talking about particular models, of which there could be a huge number, we should talk about basic principles of democracy. After all, even within the West, there is no single standard and single model.

I'm concerned about the survival, historically, of constitutional democracy.

A nation can be one or the other, a democracy or an imperialist, but it can't be both. If it sticks to imperialism, it will, like the old Roman Republic, on which so much of our system was modeled, like the old Roman Republic, it will lose its democracy to a domestic dictatorship.

Democracy will never be supplanted by a republic of experts—and that is a very good thing.