“Trump is the first anti-democratic president in modern U.S. history.”

I think that a president needs to have a variety of views presented. But also, there has to be a team effort, because otherwise, I think it creates a dissonance and difficulty.

While democracy in the long run is the most stable form of government, in the short run, it is among the most fragile.

I do not believe that things happen accidentally; I believe you earn them.

To reduce the sum of our existence to a competitive struggle for advantage among more than two hundred nations is not clear-eyed but myopic. People and nations compete, but that is not all that they do.

Good guys don’t always win, especially when they are divided and less determined than their adversaries.

The main thing is to remain oneself, under any circumstances; that was and is our common purpose.

If an advertiser can use that information to home in on a consumer because of his or her individual interests, what’s to stop a Fascist government from doing the same?

Especially when we are afraid, angry, or confused, we may be tempted to give away bits of our freedom—or, less painfully, somebody else’s freedom—in the quest for direction and order.

The main thing is to remain oneself, under any circumstances; that was and is our common purpose.

A spoonful of sugar can be as helpful in dealing with foreign diplomats as it is in child psychology, for these are not unrelated fields.

As a leader, you have to have the ability to assimilate new information and understand that there might be a different view.

Respect for the rights of others is a lofty principle; but envy is a primal urge (p114)

Because of my parents’ love of democracy, we came to America after being driven twice from our home in Czechoslovakia – first by Hitler and then by Stalin.

McCarthy fooled as many as he did because a lot of people shared his anxieties.

Fascism, most of the students agreed, is an extreme form of authoritarian rule. Citizens are required to do exactly what leaders say they must do, nothing more, nothing less.

Bill Clinton observed that when people are uncertain, they’d rather have leaders who are strong and wrong than right and weak.

The election is not just about the economy, climate change, education and health care. This is about whether we retain American democracy.

A democracy cannot thrive where power remains unchecked and justice is reserved for a select few.

Real change never occurs from the top on down, [but] always from the bottom on up.

This is not just an election on the issues. This is an election on the future of American democracy.

The Democrats can engage in the most reprehensible, mean-spirited, vile, vicious verbal attacks known in politics, and they get praised for it.

Every now and then, it might be a good idea for Congress to listen to the American people, not just large corporations.

Democracy is an internal subject of the developing society.

For 244 years our democracy has worked and this is no exception.