Ronald Reagan Quotes

The spread of democracy, the new foundation of the rule of law, and the creation of fledgling representative governments that honor and respect human rights-together these actions spell out the increasing marginalization of the terrorists, as they have fewer and fewer places to run and hide.

If there’s not a good feedback loop from the people to the government, and if you have rule of the bureaucrat — if the bureaucracy is in charge, then what meaning does democracy actually have? If the people cannot vote and have their will be decided by their elected representatives in the form of the president and the Senate and the House, then we don’t live in a democracy. We live in a bureaucracy.

Transparency in government, no less than transparency in choosing government, remains a vital national interest in a democracy.

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.

It is easy to fall into the trap of believing that democracy will improve the function of policy.

Freedom of expression - in particular, freedom of the press - guarantees popular participation in the decisions and actions of government, and popular participation is the essence of our democracy.

Representative government demands an ongoing conversation between legislators and constituents.

Democracy is good, provided the government can function.

We need a strong state but we need a democratic one.

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

The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop.

In democracies, we aren't always governed by the people or the parties that we voted for. But when officials are elected, we must respect their authority, as long as they're exercising that authority within the bounds of whatever regulatory frameworks are in place to guide them.

I'm passionate about parliament democracy.

We the people tell the government what to do, it doesn't tell us.

Democracy is our commitment. It is our great legacy, a legacy we simply cannot compromise. Democracy is in our DNA. I have seen the strength of democracy. If there were no democracy then someone like me, Modi, a child born in a poor family, how would he sit here? This is the strength of democracy.

For in a democracy, every citizen, regardless of his interest in politics, "hold office"; every one of us is in a position of responsibility; and, in the final analysis, the kind of government we get depends upon how we fulfill those responsibilities. We, the people, are the boss, and we will get the kind of political leadership, be it good or bad, that we demand and deserve.

In a political sense, there is one problem that currently underlies all of the others. That problem is making Government sufficiently responsive to the people. If we don't make government responsive to the people, we don't make it believable. And we must make government believable if we are to have a functioning democracy.

India has remained a full, functioning democracy.

A democratic constitution, not supported by democratic institutions in detail, but confined to the central government, not only is not political freedom, but often creates a spirit precisely the reverse, carrying down to the lowest grade in society the desire and ambition of political domination.

Freedom exists only where the people take care of the government.

Unless the people can choose their leaders and rulers, and can revoke their choice at intervals long enough to test their measuresby results, the government will be a tyranny exercised in the interests of whatever classes or castes or mobs or cliques have this choice.

If you give up on democracy, you might as well give up on everything.

I call government that works the best for people open society, which is basically just another more general term for a democracy that is - you call it maybe a liberal democracy. It's not only majority rule but also respect for minorities and minority opinions and the rule of law. So it's really a sort of institutional democracy.

It is a seldom proffered argument as to the advantages of a free press that it has a major function in keeping the government itself informed as to what the government is doing.

Perhaps the most important thing I learned was about democracy, that democracy is not our government, our constitution, our legal structure. Too often they are enemies of democracy.