Recep Tayyip Erdogan Quotes

We’re trying to create the first democracy in the Arab world.

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

I regard the endorsement of both the objective and a method - which can differ from one country to another- of democratization by the parties in the region as a basic requisite of democratization in the Middle East.

Almost every country in Africa has now instituted multi-party democracy.

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

I would like to extend to you our deep appreciation and thanks for the position the United States has taken in support of the democratization process that has taken place in Tunisia, in Egypt, and what is attempting to take place in Libya.

The peaceful path out of totalitarianism has never been tested.

We keep looking at democratization as an event—like the fall of the Berlin Wall—but it’s actually a process.

I'm absolutely confident that the actions we took in Iraq are influencing reformers and freedom lovers in the greater Middle East. And I believe that you're going to see the rise of democracy in many countries in the broader Middle East, which will lay the foundation for peace.

There are a lot of benefits representative of government and it is far better than any type of dictatorial system and it is far better than a one-man rule situation.

We have to implant democracies where there are now dictatorships.

With Taiwan, it took about 40 years to go from an authoritarian to a democratic society.

I believe democracy will succeed in Tunisia, but I also believe that it will succeed in the other Arab Spring countries.

China is on a march toward rule of law and democracy.

It has been well over half a century and I'm glad to say we have taken the right path from authoritarianism to democracy and this is a road of no return.

If President Obama really means what he has said repeatedly about supporting the aspirations of the Egyptian people, then he will have to recognize that in Egypt today, as in America in 1963, that can mean opposing government policy.

Over the years, I've come to recognize that democratization in Ethiopia is not just a matter of choice. It's a matter of national survival. I am deeply convinced that we either democratize and have a good chance of surviving, or if we fail to do so, we disintegrate.

The US has not imposed democracy in Yemen, its people have.

Certainly we've seen the enormous changes across the whole of the Middle East. The democratic genie is out of the bottle.

[We must] accelerate the reform of our political system, especially the building of a system of socialist democracy based on law …. Democracy is a worldwide trend …. If the Party doesn’t hold up the banner of democracy in our country, someone else will, and we will lose out.

A democratic government must always be left free to be operated upon by the will of the majority of the time being. All that the government of the day can do is to ascertain what now appears to be the best principle.

This country has been without stern, sails and wind, and it needs someone at the helm. We are doomed to live in an authoritarian state until genuine democracy, which should not be confused with anarchy, can be set up.

We want democracy, we want human rights, we want civil liberties, but we will do it our way.

The process of our democracy must not be imperiled by the denial of essential powers of free government.

We had a revolution 2 years ago, and we see a people moving from a completely authoritarian system into a democracy. They don’t know how democracy works. They don’t know the ingredients of a democracy.