Madeleine Albright Quotes

Democracy is about aggregating the collective power of citizens to speak in their behalf.

Public participation in the process of government is the essence of democracy.

If you give up on politics, you give up on democracy … and then we are absolute plutocracy.

Democracy is not a fragile flower; still it needs cultivating.

The government must give men and women without power a real say over what happens to them, and the means of engaging in a participative, invigorated and living democracy.

Everything in our foreign and domestic policy is a question of issue for the American people to vote on.

The government is us; we are the government, you and I.

As I said, I spent most of my adult life thinking I didn't have a vote, and therefore that what I thought didn't matter.

The great constitutional corrective in the hands of the people against usurpation of power, or corruption by their agents is the right of suffrage; and this when used with calmness and deliberation will prove strong enough.

Trumpeting the importance of voting deludes people into thinking that they have a leash on the government.

The function of a parliamentary democracy, under universal suffrage, historically considered, is to expose wealth-privilege to the attacks of the people.

The democratic system prevailing in the world does not suit us ...

We enter parliament in order to supply ourselves, in the arsenal of democracy, with its own weapons…. If democracy is so stupid as to give us free tickets and salaries for this … work, that is its affair.

Anyone who wants to have a perfect democracy is dreaming.

The great constitutional corrective in the hands of the people against usurpation of power, or corruption by their agents is the right of suffrage…

Democracy requires checks and balances, and it is largely through civil society that citizens protect their rights as individuals, force policy makers to accommodate their interests, and limit abuses of state authority.

There is nothing in our government that the ballot cannot remove or amend. It can make and unmake presidents and congresses and courts.... It can sweep over trusts, syndicates, corporations, monopolies and every other development of the money power.

I trust the American People more than American Institutions.

Whereas the constitution of … Holland is in its principles a popular representation, it is necessary that the right of the people be duly ascertained; that the members of the States be rendered responsible to them for their conduct and be precluded from taking any decisive step without their consent …

Without care, there is no democracy.

Somebody is going to be making the laws for this entire country. It could be you. Will it be you?

Since 1990, we have been building up the idea that democracy is the best way for sectors that feel socially excluded from politics to win power.

We need to be constantly reminded that this is a representative democracy, and we need to be in tune to what people are talking about.

Look, the people will elect the government they think best.

No government demands so much from the citizens as democracy and none gives back so much.