A CALL TO ALL MEMBERS OF WDA: Write a sentence for democracy of not more than forty words, which will be posted with your name. Democracy has many meanings, both collective and personal. It is under dire threat now in the United States but also in many other places in the world. Authoritarian howls seek to drown the voices of the majority. It is time to testify to our hope for more democracy, to celebrate the many-voiced, heterogeneous vitality we need to press the cause of democratic pluralism. Who better to articulate it than those of us who take pains over our sentences every day.
As to democracy, one of the ways of coming at it is to say what it isn't: It's not an absolute monarchy, it's not a totalitarianism, it's not an oligarchy where only rich people get to say.
Margaret Atwood
In a democracy it ought to be the citizenry itself.
Margaret Atwood
Ask both what democracy can do for you and what you can do for our democracy.
Rachel DeWoskin
Democracy is the scripture, and script, for human equality and tolerance.
Jacki Lyden
Democracy is the name of my desire.
Jo-Ann Mort
Democracy means all the people not some of the people.
Siri Hustvedt
Democracy: use it, or lose it.
Askold Melnyczuk
Democracy isn’t a gift; it’s a prize.
Askold Melnyczuk
Vote to make yourself count.
Carolyn Forché
Democracy is the only way to have a say.
Carolyn Forché
Democracy cries out: “To the barricades, yes - but with ballots, not bullets!”
James Carroll
Democracy is not a given—it is something that we must strive for and win every day, every year, every generation.
Paul Auster
Books, as the freedom to read and write what we choose, are democracy in action.
Robin Davidson
Democracy: Many voices, equal choices, under one sturdy roof.
Jill McCorkle
From the Dutch Revolution we learned that democracy requires continual vigilance against destructive powers; that’s why diligent listening to each other is the most important act in democracy.
Etienne Kuypers
Democracy is the lifeblood of a civilized country whose body politic maintains faith in the wisdom of its citizenry to uphold those democratic instruments that execute justice, fairness, and the ultimate enlightened will of the people.
Chard deNiord
Enlightened as it may be, however, it is also perennially fragile, as the present violent and divisive Zeitgeist across America betrays: Democracy is once again engaged in a dangerous struggle with fascism, racism, ignorance, and gun violence.
Chard deNiord
Political democracy and social democracy are ideals that cannot live without some foundation in a shared, democratic culture—whatever I mean by those two words!
Robert Pinsky
In an ideal democracy, everyone gets a say (however intelligent, or pointless, or stupid) in the public conversation, and everyone gets treated—not uncritically—but at least (however challenging) with respect.
Lloyd Schwartz
We grew up thinking democracy was as deeply rooted as the oldest tree, but we’re learning that ill winds can blow it down, and gleefully. How we can secure it is our task, but we know now that nothing guarantees our success.
Rosellen Brown
Democracy: a word I learned in public school, where I pledged allegiance to the flag each morning with my classmates, until I learned, also in public school, that in a democracy I could not be required to do so.
Megan Marshall
This past year I’ve thought often of Benjamin Franklin’s line ‘A republic, if you can keep it’ which I take to mean that I don’t get to assume my freedom, or yours, is guaranteed.
Emily Tedrowe
Democracy is a system committed to equity, collaboration, and giving voice to the people. Despite many struggles and failures historically to live up to Democracy’s highest goals, it has nonetheless been the world’s greatest ongoing political experiment, and only by continuing to insist upon, strengthen, and reform it can we assure a nation where true freedom exists.
Gina Frangello
To regress from Democracy instead of marching on stronger is an unthinkable threat to human dignity and the goal of improving our world.
Gina Frangello
When I think of democracy I catch the wisdom of our old barn: if too much stiffness had been in its design, it wouldn't still be standing.
Maurice Manning
Democracy means not returning to the Mississippi of my youth, where voter suppression was everyday business.
Steve Yarbrough
You cannot have a democracy with religious fundamentalists determining the human rights of women.
Peter Balakian
The founding fathers were aware that every democracy that previously existed on earth eventually slid into decadence and tyranny-let’s be original.
Jake Robertson
I grew up with the unthinking assumption of democracy—another of the great invisible words—but how brightly and anxiously it shines now in the light of its perishing.
Sven Birkerts
A democracy welcomes the stranger, giving safe haven to asylum seekers instead of detaining them, dividing their families, delaying their hearings or deporting them to face persecution or death.
Julia Lieblich
The chief virtue of democracy is that without force you can throw the bums out.
Leslie Epstein
As a veteran, I would rather see my fellow citizens struggle in a democracy plagued with misbehavior than to watch them perish in a fascist state performing true to form.
LTC Tony Schwalm
Democracy is both constitutional (law) and participatory (action) - for people (demos) cannot live by writ alone and action needs shared civic codes; its Janus face resists the Iron fist of tyranny
Richard Kearney
When a democracy dies, it takes the childhood of the future with it.
David Rivard
In a culture full of noise, democracy might be the only way we have of really listening to each other.
David Rivard
Democracy—it’s like the ventilator fan on the fryolator of ideology.
David Rivard
Democracy asks us to be something other than spectators and consumers.
David Rivard
Democracy ain’t no thing, chicken wing!
David Rivard
Democracy is like a marriage: you don't know how good it is until it's gone.
Helen Benedict
VOTE like...
the lives of the women in your life depend upon it (they do),
the marriages of the LGBTQ people in your life depend upon it (they do),
the voting rights of the BIPOC people in your life depend upon it (they do),
the country/democracy depends upon it (it does).
VOTE BLUE.
Margaret Bauer
Democracies, we know, have proven as capable of atrocity as any form of government, but give me the system in which the large body chooses how history shapes the future—how to repair yet say the difficult things, how to denounce yet claim complicity—and I will put my money every time on the human ingenuity for compassion and Justice when they’re empowered to thrive.
David Keplinger
One cannot have a Democracy without a truly informed populace, and a strong and generally realized ability to accept facts; a person who can do that is not fooled by rhetoric or political rant.
Richard Bausch
When democracy works, it works for all, and that is why it threatens some.
Curt Meine
Having taken democracy for granted and knowing it when I see it, defining it escapes me: just as we risk its extinction.
Eric A. Hoffman
If democracy is defined by its presence: when gone, what then?
Eric A. Hoffman
Democracy is meaningless unless we value all humanity.
Sholeh Wolpé
Democracy makes room for all voices to be heard.
Suzanne Roberts
In a country where my daughter now has fewer rights than I did, a true democracy is our only hope for a more equitable future.
Susan Lilley
Democracy means individual bodies are protected from state invasion.
Siri Hustvedt
Democracy is this country's air; it allows and asks that each of us speak, listen, vote, and oppose undemocratic impulses, so that each of us might breathe freely.
Anna Leahy
I was born in 1977 in a society where people lived with their mouths shut and their eyes to the ground. Is the country where I live now a democracy? I am not sure. But what I do know that democracy is worth fighting for because it allows us not to live with our mouths shut and our eyes to the ground.
Ilya Kaminsky
Democracy is a space where speaking out is possible, one which shows: our world is various, and that, perhaps, is the final argument in its defense.
Ilya Kaminsky
Democracy: a peace process without end.
Bernard Avishai
My ancestors came here to find democracy: I am staying to fight for it.
Claire Bond Potter
The human spirit craves freedom, and Democracy, for all its messiness, reflects that spirit and calls out to us for protection—a call we must answer.
Kris O’Shee
Democracy did not build Auschwitz or Dachau or Ravensbrück, nor has it built immigrant detention centers in Texas and populated them with children.
Robin Davidson
Democracy makes room for all voices to be heard.
Suzanne Roberts
Democracy is a celebration of our diverse humanity with unity of purpose towards a just society.
Leeya Mehta
Building bridges, instead of walls; including Others, instead of excluding them; cultivating empathy, instead of prejudice – these are the pillars of thinking about a democratic society.
Michał Choiński
Democracy is the way we live, the air we breathe.
Bobbie Ann Mason
The story of American Democracy is the story of the vote--who gets it and how they use it; when our country was founded only white men with property had that right and now all of us do. So how will we use it? Our future will depend on the answer to that question.
Bill Bradley
I hear democracy weep, on election day.
Charles Bernstein
Democracy’s frailty is resisted by art’s resilience.
Susan Bee
Democracy is not a hammer to the skull or missing evidence; it is innocent, evenhanded, and all embracing.
Cyrus Cassells
Democracy requires negotiation between private and public life, our individual wants and the good of all; attention, awareness of others (reading, for example) can help maintain democracy and preserve us from what motivates oligarchy and fascism.
Kevin Prufer
Democracy is the oxygen for our future.
Ulf Dahlström
Voting is the most powerful tool in our democracy and now, more than ever, if feels damn good to make our voices ring out loud as can be!
Brett Ashley Kaplan
Non-union workers spend at least a third of their lives at jobs where democracy doesn't exist.
Owen Hill
Keeping democracy alive requires engagement, honesty, respect, compassion, courage, sacrifice, and in the end, kindness.
David W Green
I have worked for decades on election day, for campaigns and as an election official, and I will do so again on Tuesday, even though I am a little scared.
Christine Arvidson
The world is watching to see if democracy in America – government of, by, and for the people - survives past this election. It’s all on the line. Vote today. Now.
Rita Swartz
What is my complicity in these dire straits?
I am the people for whom the democracy stands,
I must have failed in my duty somehow,
I must have let my guard down,
My vigilance failed.
Tracy Thompson
Backed by law and justice, democracy is the crossing guard who protects our children, our society, from deadly vehicles of power and greed that in her absence could destroy at will.
Thomas Goldsmith
Democracy would seem to be the simplest and most desirable thing imaginable. I suppose that is why some folks are so dead set against it.
Robert Edwards
Democracy is a system of government based on respect for the dignity, integrity, and worth of every individual.
Steven G. Kellman
Civility, truth, equality, and justice are the cornerstones of what makes a nation, a people, or a government democratic.
Donald Grant
Democracy is the house my grandparents built for me; now I hope to help repair it.
Robbi Nester
Democracy is a system of governance that fosters openness, encouraging all members of the society to hear and speak the truth as they see it, as long as their words do not promote or threaten violence.
Robbi Nester
Majority = half-plus-one of eligible voters who choose to vote, not half-plus-one of those left standing after voter suppression, intimidation and thuggery have winnowed down the electorate.
Richard Allen Taylor
Democracy is the reality of fairness.
Jim Stevens
Not the blah-blah or the rah-rah, but the trust that most humans will vote for what will help all kinds of humans.
David Almaleck Wolinsky
Freedom in a democracy emerges when we accept differences between individuals, social groups and ecosystems.
James Sherry
All voices equally heard, counted and represented, together with the respect of rights and laws that ensure equal and free access to social and economic goods.
Noga ArIkha
Midwife of justice, harbinger of hope, motor of freedom, larynx of protest, fist of resistance, sinews of unity, womb of tomorrow: democracy.
Mariana Mcdonald
Democracy: because there’s nothing as empowering as voting. To vote is to declare, I matter.
Kim Church
As it has been said, " all fingers are not equal", yet Democracy does not espouse the myth of asymmetricism as all men are born equal.
David Chung
When asked, Mahatma Ghandi said "Democracy would be a very good idea," I now cry for us all, IT IS OUR LAST AND ONLY HOPE FOR AMERICA, OR... THE GROWING GLOBAL FASCISM WILL MURDER US ONE BY ONE, AND ALL.
Margo Berdeshevsky
Democracy means the freedom to be an American in all of her iterations. Michelle Smith-Johansen Democracy is the beast with claws and teeth that battles the monster of injustice.
Nora B. Peevy
The culture of democracy embraces norms of equality, mutual respect, interdependence, and reciprocity—ordinary, imperfect people become sources of freedom, sharing resources and caring about and for one another.
Bill Ayers
Democracy – a living organism: It breathes, dreams, learns as it grows & hopes for a better, more perfect union of people, held together by a common thread of civil & just ideals.
Michael Allyn Wells
Gateways to civic engagement once considered guaranteed remain unopened for growing numbers of our neighbors waiting for gatekeepers who themselves have designed gates that restrict expanded participation.
Milton Jordan
Without democracy, we have dictatorships.
Ruth Rosen
The dream of democracy veers, these days, to the nightmare of despotic rule: We all need to be wakeful, so that – as did Caliban – “I cried to dream again.”
Nicholas Delbanco
Living in a democracy requires valuing mutual respect and acknowledging that to infringe on the rights of one oppresses us all.
Joyce Yarrow
Democracy is a “do unto” kind of golden rule—like Lincoln said, as I wouldn’t be a slave, I will not be a master— I’ll hear my fellow citizen as I expect to be heard.
Tom Driscoll
Only a careful literary analysis will reveal the true spirit of the Constitution while originalism must interpret the world at the time of its writing, which no longer exists.
Rick Clark
Democracy is embodied in the ballot; its soul is our faith in the equality of each of us.
Fred Marchant
Democracy is a state where every voice and vote counts and is not validated based on skin color.
Megha Sood
Democracy, we now know, requires not laws but honorable people: Come forward.
Robert Stewart
A generation's struggle to preserve its democracy is the same as its struggle to define it.
Elliot Ackerman
I am loyal to the ideas of democracy, that our founders so eloquently skirted, that all men and women are born free, have the right to self-determination, and that people can form contracts with one another to live peacefully and in sovereignty.
Elizabeth L. Hodges
Search for the truth
Vote for the truth
for all women and men
one person one vote
And don't believe all
that you read and hear
on social media
Laura Chester
Democracy requires mutual respect, common sense, protection of the natural world, and laws that benefit the needs of the many instead of the profits of the few.
Summer Brenner
Democracy is the highest form of self-interest, requiring intelligence, personal discipline, emotional maturity, empathy, compassion, a sense of community, belonging and fair play without these things we have games without referees, gladiatorial fights to the death, incipient chaos, violence in the streets and social, economic, cultural and intellectual stagnation and collapse.
Steven E. Liebowitz
Declare, demand, deliver, defend: democracy.
Paul Fericano
Democracy requires truth, honor, integrity, as we need water and air: Let’s keep its cup full to the brim, day after day after day.
Heidi Jon Schmidt
Democracy is inclusive, which threatens those entitled to think otherwise.
Ken Waldman
An ideal we strive to meet, Democracy is a government process of critique and correct, driven by free speech, by one person-one vote, we lurch into the future weighing hope and fear, and fight against rule by wealth.
Susu Jeffrey
Government by the people, for the people — and religion’s got nothing to do with it, but civility sure does.
Marshall Chapman
Democracy is a group of children jumping a long rope; one enters, then another, then another, all are jumping together, and singing, and laughing; the ones who are at both ends also take turns to jump: Authoritarian is the one who angrily takes the rope and goes home.
Kirmen Uribe
True democracy speaks to the dignity of all citizens to have an equal vote in how our country is governed, although voter intimidation, gerrymandering and the electoral college seem to suggest otherwise.
Amanda Holmes Duffy
Democracy means non-violent discourse, however contentious; and holding to a disciplined commitment to evidence-based reality.
Robert Jay Lifton
Liberal democracy is fragile because it requires of us the hardest thing: the moral discipline to accept political opposition as legitimate and to afford every single person civil and political rights.
Nancy Rosenbloom
Democracy is founded on principles of equality and fairness; it is the antithesis of tyranny, which is founded on principles of dominance and subordination.
Judith Herman
Democracy: a beautiful cacophony.
John Okrent
Democracy is our screaming child; we can either divert her attention and shut her up, or we can listen and try to understand what she is so urgently telling us.
John Okrent
The grand experiment of agreeing to hold each other’s truth. And then living in that covenant: listening, hearing, acting on each other’s behalf knowing you too will be held as equal.
Sophie Cabot Black
Democracy is Playing by the Rules.
Samia Serageldin
Democracy is like a beautiful conglomerate stone—speckled with brown and white and black and red—that you found near a clear stream; you need to polish it and cherish it.
Bill Meissner
It is often said that oppression triggers creativity; yet who would not trade Dostoyevsky for a binding Bill of Rights?
Steven G. Kellman
Democracy is for every body: it’s our breath, bones and blood—without it we’re an empty shell.
Amy Dryansky
The fibers of society, democracy’s core, are as fleeting as a reflection in a pool should we look away.
John Pietaro
Democracy means the rule of the people, not the rule of monarchs or the moneyed, but the rule of the people; autocracy is the opposite of democracy [and] means the rule of one, one person, one interest, one ideology, one party.
Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
Nothing is guaranteed about democracy in America, every generation has had to defend it, protect it, preserve it, choose it: we can’t take democracy for granted any longer.
Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
My ancestors didn’t flee persecution in Eastern Europe to the golden shores of America for their descendants to end up living under a fascist government. Please vote for your highest values. We won't know what we've lost until it's gone.
Alissa Hirshfeld
We hold these truths to be self-evident: do we still, did we ever, can we?
Peter Brooks
Democracy is the power of using your voice, and also the power of listening.
Eileen Spiegler
Democracy is a promise of an equal honoring of each other.
Joseph Lopez