Since the days of Greece and Rome the word 'citizen' was a title of honor. We have often seen more emphasis put on the rights of citizenship than on its responsibilities.
Robert KennedyAt the heart of that western freedom and democracy is the belief that the individual man...is the touchstone of value, and all society, all groups, and states, exist for that person's benefit. Therefore the enlargement of liberty for individual human beings must be the supreme goal and the abiding practice of any western society.
Robert KennedyIt is not enough to understand, or to see clearly. The future will be shaped in the arena of human activity, by those willing to commit their minds and their bodies to the task.
Robert KennedyFor there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly, destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is a slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter.
Robert Kennedy