Aung San Suu Kyi Quotes

Our concepts of ballot-box democracy may need to be modified to produce strong governments capable of making difficult decisions

American capitalism is predatory, and American politics are corrupt: The same thing is true in England and the same in France; but in all these three countries the dominating fact is that whatever the people get ready to change the government, they can change it. The same thing is not true of Germany

If we believe in a democratic system, we have to accept the will of the people.

The theory of democratic government is not that the will of the people is always right, but rather that normal human beings of average intelligence will, if given a chance, learn the right and best course by bitter experience.

A radical ... and revolutionary ... attack upon the fundamental basic principle of representative democracy for free people.

Allow peaceful demonstrations and the next thing you know people will want a voice in running things.

Once you have lost control over your people, you are on the road toward a potentially democratic society.

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

The democracy of the Western countries is the predecessor of Marxism, which would be unthinkable without democracy.

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.

The parliamentary regime leaves everything to the decision of majorities,--how can the large majorities beyond parliament be expected not to wish to decide? If, from above, they hear the fiddle screeching, what else is to be expected than that those below should dance?

The will of the people... is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object

I believe in war, if the people want war. They have to do the fighting. I believe, first, in a referendum to the people, and failing that, a decision by the people's representatives in Congress assembled.

Political competition is the heartbeat of democracy.

The real strength of the democratic theory in opposition to the fascist or communist is that the fascist frankly states that certain people will tell other people what they shall do to be happy, and those other people have little or nothing to say about it. In theory the communists were to do everything in common, in practice a small group there also tells other people what they shall do to achieve their objectives. So far more nearly than any other form of government, the democratic form has allowed people to shape their own government

The worldwide demand for democratic government in the modern era arose due to the success of the countries practicing it.

To take an analogy: if we say that a democratic government is the best kind of government, we mean that it most completely fulfills the highest function of a government - the realisation of the will of the people.

And so I have studied, I have to tell you, revolutions and uprisings for a long time. They are all slightly different, but what they all look for is some kind of a mechanism to go from an authoritarian system to an open, democratic system.

As I understand the American Founders, the most brilliant and daring idea they had was that it's possible to create a free society that could stay free forever.

The US and the European Union needs to help in the translation of the demand for democracy into a political will.

We believe that this is not right for a democracy to make revolutions the beacon of promoting democracy.

The way people in democracies think of the government as something different from themselves is a real handicap. And, of course, sometimes the government confirms their opinion.

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.

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.

In a democracy, power is not permanent.