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Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.

Democracy is a destiny of humanity which cannot be averted. It can be delayed but not defeated.

Democracy may mean something more than a theoretically absolute popular government, but it assuredly cannot mean anything less.

Democracy is but an experiment in the long history of the world.

I say that democracy can never prove itself beyond cavil, until it founds and luxuriantly grows its own forms of art, poems, schools, theology, displacing all that exists, or that has been produced anywhere in the past, under opposite influences.

We should never take democracy for granted. Democracy can emerge and develop, but it can also decay.

But democracy isn't a state of perfection. It has to be improved, and that means constant vigilance.

Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be.

I don't see democracy getting better. I see democracy diminishing. More rules, more legislation. Eventually governments will see everything.

Our democracy is not a product but a continual process. It is preserved not by monuments but deeds. Sometimes it needs refining; sometimes it needs amending; sometimes it needs defending. Always, it needs improving.