Nadezhda Tolokonnikova Quotes

It is beneficial for Turkish democracy that not all religious conservatives are united under one banner.

A new breeze is blowing, and a world refreshed by freedom seems reborn; for in man's heart, if not in fact, the day of the dictator is over. The totalitarian era is passing, its old ideas blown away like leaves from an ancient, lifeless tree.

Things are better for the country if there is [political] competition. But these people [Haitian politicians] are not used to competition … Each has a monopoly in his own area. I’m trying to change that.

This is a struggle between a struggling democracy and a vicious dictatorship, and I think we should take sides.

Democracy is like a street car. You get off when you reach your destination.

To view the opposition as dangerous is to misunderstand the basic concepts of democracy. To oppress the opposition is to assault the very foundation of democracy.

If dictatorship is the concentration of power, freedom consists in its diffusion.

As for me, I am deeply a democrat; this is why I am in no way a socialist. Democracy and socialism cannot go together. You can't have it both ways. Socialism is a new form of slavery.

Europe is a democracy and differences of opinion are part of it.

A democracy is a compromise by its nature. It's not a dictatorship.

I mean, I'm not a, you know, a fraidy cat. I mean, I am truly concerned in this country that we are moving towards fascism.

We must let this town square, which has added a significant dimension to our political process, continue to flourish.

My interest is, my one hobby is, maintaining a democracy. If you get these 500,000 soldiers advocating anything smelling of Fascism, I am going to get 500,000 more and lick the hell out of you, and we will have a real war right at home.

Whenever all men are...hastening to be slaves or tyrants we make Liberalism the prime bogey.

Democracy is morose, and runs to anarchy, but in the state, and in the schools, it is indispensable to resist the consolidation ofall men into a few men.

No party has a monopoly on wisdom. No democracy works without compromise.

If a nation wishes, it can have both free elections and slavery.

When threatened, the first thing a democracy gives up is democracy.

It is democracy I am really suffering from as much as I am suffering from the opposition.

How can we speak of Democracy or Freedom when from the very beginning of life we mould the child to undergo tyranny, to obey a dictator? How can we expect democracy when we have reared slaves? Real freedom begins at the beginning of life, not at the adult stage. These people who have been diminished in their powers, made short-sighted, devitalized by mental fatigue, whose bodies have become distorted, whose wills have been broken by elders who say: "your will must disappear and mine prevail!"-how can we expect them, when school-life is finished, to accept and use the rights of freedom?

Dissent is what rescues democracy from a quiet death behind closed doors.

Public opinion sets bounds to every government, and is the real sovereign in every free one.

What is the value of any political freedom, but as a means to moral freedom?

We say in a democracy that good ideas will drive out bad ones, so if the good ones aren't there, we're left with the bad ones

If you have reservations about the system and want to change it, the democratic argument goes, do so within the system: put yourself forward as a candidate for political office, subject yourself to the scrutiny and the vote of fellow citizens. Democracy does not allow for politics outside the democratic system. In this sense, democracy is totalitarian.