Russ Feingold Quotes

The real truth is, I just want to keep the voice of dissent alive in all of our elections. I don't really want to hang out with politicians.

In a democracy, dissent is an act of faith.

So long as we have enough people in this country willing to fight for their rights, we'll be called a democracy.

Opinion and protest are the life breath of democracy—even when it blows heavy.

Democracy is not a result. Democracy is a process.

The major conflicts of our day are autocrats verses the village square.

Politics is about maintaining a framework for ordered liberty so that people can live in the neighborhoods and the communities that they live in.

Protests are part of our democracy.

I have been fighting for democracy since I was 15 when I organised a strike to oppose the Hong Kong government's plan to introduce the Chinese patriotic school education; 100,000 people surrounded a government building with students asking for democracy for every citizen.

The only way change happens is when people become more significantly involved in the political process.

Citizenship has been out of fashion for some decades in our country, but now it is back in fashion. Weekends are for fighting tyranny. And that's why it's going to be really fun to see Democracy Now!

A political conception covers the right to vote, the political virtues, and the good of political life, but it doesn't intend to cover anything else.

Democracy is not what we hate the most and what we fear the most. We need to stand up.

The case to be made is that we have got to get people involved - continue to get people involved in the political process at every level.

We can't continue assuming that politics is something which is decided elsewhere by distant leaders in a distant capital. Protest is insufficient too. If people who are willing to put time into demonstrations also prove willing to work on behalf of candidates in local elections - or to become candidates themselves - they will achieve far more. If all of this upheaval provokes more involvement, then we have a slim chance of ending up with more vibrant democracies eventually. The alternative, as you've hinted, is that democracy fails altogether.

I am a firm believer in the importance of democracy, not only as the ultimate goal, but also as an essential part of the process.

Ben Carson and I don't have much in common politically. But the fact is when you have kids getting involved in the political process, doing their best to elect the candidates of their choice, that's what the American democracy is about.

Did you ever get to wondering if taxation without representation might have been cheaper?

Politics, of course, requires sweat, work, combat, and organization. But these should not be ugly words for and free people.

The struggle for democracy has to be maintained on as many fronts as culture has aspects: political, economic, international, educational, scientific and artistic, religious.

Politics deserves much praise. Politics is a preoccupation of free men, and its existence is a test of freedom. The praise of free men is worth having, for it is the only praise which is free from either servility or condescension.

A genuinely political society, in which discussion and debate are an essential technique, is a society full of risks.

Some observers compare elections in some countries with sports events, where people are but spectators. Moreover, elections must not be mere interludes for pushing a lever and then retreating to passivity, for democracy demands committed participation in the daily workings of society.

In the United States, if 43 percent of eligible voters do not vote, then democracy is weakened.

Democracy means the belief that humanistic culture should prevail.