Popular quotes about Citizen! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 9
Government force is derived from the sum of the physical force each citizen could exert which by one citizen himself would be ineffective, but when summed from the force of all the area's citizens indeed composes a power no citizen or group can withstand. That force is then rightly but justly to be used against those who violate the foundation pillars of freedom.
Ludwig von MisesOne citizen, or a few, may be powerless if all the rest are determined to benefit from the imposition of unjust supranational rules. But this excuse cannot work for large numbers. Just imagine 10 million US citizens saying in unison: "I am just one powerless citizen. There is nothing I can do to change my government's policies!"
Thomas PoggeThe technotronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities.
Zbigniew BrzezinskiWhen a legislature undertakes to proscribe the exercise of a citizen's constitutional right to free speech, it acts lawlessly; and the citizen can take matters into his own hands and proceed on the basis that such a law is no law at all.
William O. DouglasAn artist may have burdens the ordinary citizen doesn't know, but the ordinary citizen has burdens that many artists never even touch.
Patti SmithI think the regime in North Korea is more fragile than people think. The country's economic system remains desperate, and one thing that could happen for example would be under a new government in South Korea, to get the South Korean government to live up to its own constitution, which says any Korean who makes it to South Korea, is a Korean citizen. A citizen of the Republic of Korea. And you could imagine the impact that would have inside North Korea if people thought, "If I could get out and make it to South Korea, I could have a different life."
John BoltonThe citizen lives in each of us. In the days of Brezhnev, Andropov, Gorbachev and Yeltsin, I was constantly trying to suppress the responsible citizen in me. I told myself that I was, after all, an artist.
Vladimir SorokinTo kill a citizen of our own country is evil, but to kill a citizen of another country is 'good.'
Edgar MitchellVirginia States' rights, as our forefathers conceived it, was a protection of the right of the individual citizen. Those who preach most frequently about states' rights today are not those seeking the protection of the individual citizen, but his exploitation. The time is long past โ if indeed it ever existed โ when we should permit the noble concept of states' rights to be betrayed.
Robert KennedyWe are not a nation of immigrants. We are a nation of citizens. I am sick and tired of the American citizen being demeaned and treated as a second-class citizen while anybody who crosses the border is treated as the most virtuous human being on the face of the earth.
Mark LevinI became an American citizen three years ago, and if I'd been arrested, maybe that wouldn't have happened. That was a very proud moment, by the way. I still have my Irish passport, but becoming an American citizen was important in terms of my family.
Jason O'MaraI do not choose to be a common man. It is my right to be uncommon - if I can. I seek opportunity - not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me. I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed... It is my heritage...to think and act for myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations, and to face the world boldly and say, this I have done.
Dean AlfangeMost criminals are not born; they are made.... What the State really punishes in a criminal is often its own neglect, its own failure to do its duty to the citizen.
William Randolph HearstTo every woman who gave birth, to every citizen and taxpayer, it's our time to have wage equality once and for all and equal rights for women of the United States of America!
Patricia ArquetteFriends have asked how I came to engender this American antagonism. My prodigious sin was, and still is, being a non-conformist. Although I am not a Communist I refused to fall in line by hating them. Secondly, I was opposed to the Committee on Un-American Activities - a dishonest phrase to begin with, elastic enough to wrap around the throat and strangle the voice of any American citizen whose honest opinion is a minority of one.
Charlie ChaplinIf you are a Morocco citizen with a dual nationality, if you commit a crime in Morocco you are stripped Moroccan nationality and send to our own country. We can learn from them in that respect.
Geert WildersHistory, if thoroughly comprehended, furnishes something of the experience which a man would acquire who should be a contemporary of all ages and a fellow citizen of all peoples.
Philibert Joseph RouxI would never want to pass a law limiting freedom of speech, but that doesn't mean we have to condone statements that undermine basic national unity and respect. Imagine being asked to defend a country where some citizens say the man in the White House isn't their president. Or a major presidential contender accuses the commander in chief of not even being a U.S. citizen. Those kinds of statements erode trust in our democracy, and it's up to both parties to publicly reject them. We have to restore confidence that we are a nation that loves and believes in itself.
Sebastian JungerWe must have constantly present in our minds the difference between independence and liberty. Liberty is a right of doing whatever the laws permit, and if a citizen could do what they forbid he would no longer be possessed of liberty.
Baron de MontesquieuI do have a side as a citizen, and I've always expressed it, and that's where I've gotten into misunderstandings, because some people see me as a leftist nut or whatever. A conspiracy nut. All that stuff. These are definitions that don't really apply to a dramatist, because a dramatist is working from empathy.
Oliver StoneThe legislation of the government has been directed rather to the protection of the rights of money and property than to the best good of the citizen.
Susette La FlescheIn real life, there are right-wingers, there are anti-immigrant activists who want to overturn this constitutional right that we have to become Americans when we're born in this country. There's lots of people who believe that this has led to the phenomenon of the anchor babies. I am an anchor baby. My parents were able to receive their residency and citizenship because, I, a U.S. citizen child of theirs, was born in Los Angeles.
Hector TobarHereโs my gut belief: Obama got a leg up by being admitted to both Occidental and Columbia as a foreign exchange student. He was raised as a young boy in Indonesia. But did his mother ever change him back to a U.S. citizen? When he returned to live with his grandparents in Hawaii or as he neared college-age preparing to apply to schools, did he ever change his citizenship back? Iโm betting not.
Wayne Allyn RootBut if writing about people who are not yourself is illegitimate, then the only legitimate work is autobiography; and as a reader and a citizen, I donโt want to live in that world.
Katherine BooAs a German citizen, as a German professor, and as a political person, I hold it to be not only my right but also my moral duty to take part in the shaping of our German destiny, to expose and oppose obvious wrongs.
Kurt HuberI think for the open-minded, I'm a lot like Luciano Pavarotti... But I don't know the technique. I'm learning. I think Pavarotti was a citizen of the world. He was very eclectic. He sang with Sting and with a lot of other pop artists, and this open-mindedness, for me, is very important.
Amaury VassiliIt was when I realised I had a new nationality: I was in exile. I am an adulterous resident: when I am in one city, I am dreaming of the other. I am an exile; citizen of the country of longing.
Suketu MehtaThe dissident does not operate in the realm of genuine power at all. He is not seeking power. He has no desire for office and does not gather votes. He does not attempt to charm the public, he offers nothing and promises nothing. He can offer, if anything, only his own skin - and he offers it solely because he has no other way of affirming the truth he stands for. His actions simply articulate his dignity as a citizen, regardless of the cost.
Vaclav HavelIt is to law alone that men owe justice and liberty. It is this salutary organ, of the will of all which establishes in civil rights the natural equality between men. It is this celestial voice which dictates to each citizen the precepts of public reason, and teaches him to act according to the rules of his own judgment and not to behave inconsistently with himself. It is with this voice alone that political leaders should speak when. they command.
Jean-Jacques RousseauPrivacy is absolutely essential to maintaining a free society. The idea that is at the foundation of the notion of privacy is that the citizen is not the tool or instrument of government - but the reverse... If you have no privacy, it will tend to follow that you have no political freedom.
Benno C. Schmidt, Jr.Sovereignty must not be used for inflicting harm on anyone, whether citizen or foreigner.
Ludwig von MisesCivil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state has become lawless or corrupt. And a citizen who barters with such a state shares in its corruption and lawlessness.
Mahatma GandhiTrees are contagious; as soon as one neighborhood or street is planted, citizen pressure builds up for action from the next street.
William H. WhyteA citizen who casts his ballot without having to the best of his abilities studied as much economics as he can fails in his civic duties.
Ludwig von Mises[Donald Trump] has really started his political activity based on this racist lie that our first black president was not an American citizen. There was absolutely no evidence for it, but he persisted, he persisted year after year, because some of his supporters, people that he was trying to bring into his fold, apparently believed it or wanted to believe it.
Hillary ClintonI am an American citizen and it is my home now. I like the USA, which is not a place too many people have liked since Bush. The US has a young population, and everything can change within a year.
Isabel AllendeI have an identity crisis which is not resolved because I'm a dual citizen. My whole family is American, and I was born in India but I was raised in Canada.
Emily HainesIf only I could visit you as a foreigner goes into a new country, learn the language of you, wander past all borders into every private and secret place, I would stay forever. I would become a citizen of you.
Lisa KleypasEvery human being born within the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen.
John BinghamIt is probably a pity that every citizen of each state cannot visit all the others, to see the differences, to learn what we have in common, and come back with a richer, fuller understanding of America - in all its beauty, in all its dignity, in all its strength, in support of moral principles.
Dwight D. EisenhowerIn fact rules are more important in our underworld than they are to the regular citizen who works within them.
Chad StahelskiAnd we are in a strange conundrum. You can kill an American citizen overseas. But according to this administration, if you capture him in the United States, they've got to be read their Miranda rights.
John McCainI'd much rather see a world where, when you make some quirky comment on a blog or news story or you upload a video clip, instead of just a moment of fame for your pseudonym, you'll get 50 bucks. The first time that happens, you'll realise that you're a full-class citizen. You have the potential to make money from the system.
Jaron Lanier