Salman Rushdie Quotes

Democracy, like any non-coercive relationship, rests on a shared understanding of limits.

This Bible is for the government of the people, by the people and for the people.

The foundation upon which democracy rests is faith in the moral instincts of the people. Its ballot boxes, the franchise, its laws, and constitutions are but the outward manifestations of the deeper and more essential thing—a continuing trust in the moral purposes of the average man and woman.

In an autocracy, one person has his way; in an aristocracy a few people have their way; in a democracy no one has his way.

Two great parties are forming in all nations. For one there is a right of government to be exercised by one or several persons over the mass of the people .... This is opposed by the new system which admits no right of government except that arising from the free consent of those who submit to it.

People mistake majoritarianism for democracy.

Government should fear the people, not the other way around.

Democracy, republics: What do these words signify?

Democracy, Republic: What do these words signify? What have they changed in the world? Have men become better, more loyal, kinder? Are the people happier? All goes on as before, as always. Illusions, illusions.

We need to work out what kind of systems of governance we should have.

I think democracy is not a destination. I don't think socialism is a railway station and if we catch the right train with the right driver, we'll get there. I think it's a way of thinking about things and every generation has to do it again.

The essence of democracy is not that everyone makes and administers laws but that lawgivers and rulers should be dependent on the people's will in such a way that they may be peaceably changed if conflict occurs.

If you want to be free, or you want to preserve freedom for people, you both need to have laws that make it so people have freedom of speech and all the freedoms that they need. You also need to have an open governance system where people can vote and people have representation.

Between a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos.

We have, on the whole, more liberty and less equality than Russia has. Russia has less liberty and more equality. Whether democracy should be defined primarily in terms of liberty or equality is a source of unending debate.

A nation can be one or the other, a democracy or an imperialist, but it can't be both. If it sticks to imperialism, it will, like the old Roman Republic, on which so much of our system was modeled, like the old Roman Republic, it will lose its democracy to a domestic dictatorship.

Democracy is morose, and runs to anarchy.

We are inclined to confuse freedom and democracy, which we regard as moral principles, with the way in which they are practiced in America with capitalism, federalism, and the two-party system, which are not moral principles but simply the preferred and accepted practices of the American people.

Different generations and people of different ethnic origins have different views on China. But they all agree on one thing. That is democracy.

Democracy is the opposite of totalitarianism, communism, fascism, or mobocracy.

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.

The government is supposed to respond to the will of the people. Not dictate to the people what they are doing.

It's hard in all countries. Democracy is hard, but it's better than the alternatives.

With few exceptions, democracy has not brought good government to new developing countries. What Asians value may not necessarily be what Americans or Europeans value. Westerners value the freedoms and liberties of the individual. As an Asian of Chinese cultural backround, my values are for a government which is honest, effective and efficient.

Democracy is not an end in itself, but a means to achieve the sacred promises of human dignity, justice and peace.