“What we need in politics today is not more democracy but less.”

“The political history of the twentieth century is the story of greater and more direct political participation. And success kept expanding democracy's scope. Whatever the ailment, more democracy became the cure.”

“Legitimacy is the elixir of political power. "The strongest is never strong enough to be the master", Jean-Jaques Rousseau observed, "unless he translates strength into right and obedience into duty". Only democracy has that authority in the world today.”

“In the Middle East today there are too many people consumed by political dreams and too few interested in practical plans. That is why, to paraphrase Winston Churchill's line about the Balkans, the region produces more history than it consumes.”

“Eighty years ago, Woodrow Wilson took America into the twentieth century with a challenge to make the world safe for democracy. As we enter the twenty-first century, our task is to make democracy safe for the world.”

“If you listen to the political discourse in America today, you would think that all our problems have been caused by the Mexicans of the Chinese or the Muslims. The reality is that we have caused our own problems. Whatever has happened has been caused by isolating ourselves or blaming others.”

“France placed the state above society , democracy above constitutionalism, and equality above liberty. As a result, for much of the nineteenth century it was democratic, with broad suffrage and elections, but hardly liberal. it was certainly a less secure home for individual freedom than was England or America.”