Barack Obama Quotes

Democracy in the contemporary world demands, among other things, an educated and informed people.

Democracy doesn't require a whole lot of work of its citizens, but it requires some: It requires taking a good look outside once in a while, and considering the bad news and what it might mean, and making the occasional tough choice, and soberly taking stock of what your real interests are.

I can't talk about foreign policy like anyone who's spent their life reading and learning foreign policy. But as a citizen in a democracy, it's very important that I participate in that.

Even under the best forms [of government], those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny ... the most effectual means of preventing this would be to illuminate ... the minds of the people at large.

Your vote is your voice.

Unless we citizens speak out, unless we are vigilant, democracy cannot fully function.

I think we need to raise our voices, and we need to demonstrate to the people we represent, as well as the American people, that their leaders have a responsibility to take action.

Get involved in an issue that you're passionate about. It almost doesn't matter what it is ... We give too much of our power away, to the professional politicians, to the lobbyists, to cynicism. And our democracy suffers as a result.

Democracy doesn't work unless people are well informed, and I don't know that we are. People just don't have the time. Most people's daily lives are just about surviving. Most people don't have time to really study [crucial] issues.

Everyone has an influence on public affairs if he will take the trouble to exert it.

Bernard Shaw remains the only model we have of what the citizen of a democracy should be: an informed participant in all things we deem important to the society and the individual.

I actually do not think that's how what's happening to our government is going to be stopped. I think people who are willing to be civically engaged and believe in the promises and the progress of the last fifty years that will save this country.

Democracy doesn't work unless the public is informed.

A citizen who casts his ballot without having to the best of his abilities studied as much economics as he can fails in his civic duties.

We need to get better at voting and be a voice for the people who do not have one.

If active or concerned citizens forfeit politics, they thereby abandon their society to its most mediocre and venal public servants

As for being a voice in politics, I feel whether you are famous or not, busy or not, it's incumbent upon every citizen to participate in this government in any way we can.

What I would advise, what I advised before the election, and what I will continue to advise after the election, is that elections matter; voting matters; organizing matters; being informed on the issues matter.

Democracy disciplined and enlightened is the finest thing in the world. A democracy prejudiced, ignorant, superstitious, will land itself in chaos and may be self-destroyed.

No government can be free that does not allow all its citizens to participate in the formation and execution of her laws.

In the 1960s, various parts of the population became energized and began to enter the public arena to call for the rights of women, students, young people, old people, farmers and workers. What are called "special interests" - meaning the whole population - they began to press to enter the public arena. And they said that puts too much pressure on the state and therefore we have to have more moderation in democracy and they should go back and be quiet and obedient.

Democracy makes many taxing demands on its practitioners, but suspension of the intelligence is not one of them.

If you have an informed electorate, it makes great choices.

There are people working their butts off trying to save our republic and save democracy from the likes of powerful people in the Democrat Party who want to take this country and turn it into a personal little playground for their own private gain.

In general, democracy and individualism have advanced in spite of and often against specific economic interest. Both democracy and individualism have been based upon financial sacrifice, not gain. Even in Athens, a large part of the 7,000 citizens who participated regularly in assemblies were farmers who had to give up several days' work to go into town to talk and listen.