Quotes About Citizens

When we speak of the origin of western democracy it's precisely here, in this territory that the modern definition of democracy first emerged in city/states known now as Greece. This was coming from a society in which 30 thousand citizens had rights and 300 thousand were slaves and citizens without rights that lived in this territory. So that was the concept of western democracy; some citizens had the prerogative of exerting their civil and political rights while the others had none.

We demand in the Reconstruction suffrage for all the citizens of the Republic. I would not talk of Negroes or women, but of citizens.

People nowadays interchange gifts and favors out of friendship, but buying and selling is considered absolutely inconsistent with the mutual benevolence which should prevail between citizens and the sense of community of interest which supports our social system. According to our ideas, buying and selling is essentially anti-social in all its tendencies. It is an education in self-seeking at the expense of others, and no society whose citizens are trained in such a school can possibly rise above a very low grade of civilization

Obviously, our political system is profoundly corrupted by, among other things, the influence of money. But, at a deeper level, the current structure is flawed because it looks to citizens for only two things - votes and money. I don't think we will see any healing until citizens are viewed in a whole new way.

The source of the government's authority is “the consent of the governed.” This means that the government is not the ruler, but the servant or agent of the citizens; it means that the government as such has no rights except the rights delegated to it by the citizens for a specific purpose.

These are three American citizens and we really demand answers for American citizens.

If the state cannot be entirely composed of good men, and yet each citizen is expected to do his own business well, and must therefore have virtue, still inasmuch as all the citizens cannot be alike, the virtue of the citizen and of the good man cannot coincide. All must have the virtue of the good citizen - thus, and thus only, can the state be perfect; but they will not have the virtue of a good man, unless we assume that in the good state all the citizens must be good.

If the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted . . . . If a republican government fails to secure public prosperity and happiness, it must be because the citizens neglect the Divine commands, and elect bad men to make and administer the laws.

Now our job, our duty, our responsibility to ensure the safety and security of our citizens cannot be complete unless we guarantee health care security for our citizens.

The plain fact is that education is itself a form of propaganda - a deliberate scheme to outfit the pupil, not with the capacity to weigh ideas, but with a simple appetite for gulping ideas ready-made. The aim is to make 'good' citizens, which is to say, docile and uninquisitive citizens.

[Persons] who are recognized as citizens in any one state of the Union [have] the right to enter every other state, whenever they pleased... full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might meet; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went.

With an orchestra you are building citizens, better citizens for the community.

It is manifestly idiotic to believe that Israel, with five million Jewish citizens and one million Arab citizens, will concede to the return of four million refugees. It will not happen. We can wish it, we can think it's just, that it's moral - it will not happen. No country commits suicide.

The reality is that the people that we represent are no longer going to be second-class citizens in their own country.

Dinah Shore? Wonderful woman. Dinah formed a foundation to locate missing senior citizens by putting their pictures on prune juice bottles.

The White House looked into a plan that would allow illegal immigrants to stay in the United States. The plan called for a million Mexicans to marry a million of our ugliest citizens.

It's an important point, and every little bit helps not least because those who make those kinds of changes are more likely to make their voices heard as citizens. But the ultimate solutions are going to come through policies.

I acknowledge that such a debt [of service to my fellow-citizens] exists, that a tour of duty in whatever line he can be most useful to his country, is due from every individual. It is not easy perhaps to say of what length exactly that tour should be, but we may safely say of what length it should not be. Not of our whole life, for instance, for that would be to be born a slave-not even of a very large portion of it.

If terror groups are to be defeated, it is national governments that will have to do so. In nations like India, governments will have to call on the patriotism of citizens to fight the terrorists. In a nation like Pakistan, the government will have to be persuaded to deal with those in their midst who are complicit.

I think it is right for Canadians to be asked to show their faces when they're taking the oath. On revocation of citizenship, we do not let people who have criminal records, including convictions for terrorism, become either permanent residents or citizens. I think there is a limit beyond which someone has really cashed in their chips in terms of their allegiance to Canada.

...It is statistically irrefutable that those American cities with stringent "gun control" (e.g. N.Y.C., D.C., Chicago, L.A.) have higher crime rates. It is also irrefutable that those 31 states which have made conceal carry of handguns easy for law-abiding citizens have correspondingly enjoyed significant drops in their crime rates.

I was brought up in a very ordinary family, in fact, a worker's family. Both my father and mother were ordinary citizens.

Peace is nothing more than the regulation of the psycho-political economy of awe and reverential fear, of using the threat of terror in order to bind citizens to the circuit of their subjection.

The labor unions shall have a square deal, and the corporations shall have a square deal, and in addition, all private citizens shall have a square deal.

Through the skill and devotion to duty of their armed forces of all branches in the Midway area our citizens can now rejoice that a momentous victory is in the making.

I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected him from your city.

Politicians detest self-sufficient citizens. Politicians need to be needed. When we get socialized medicine, you will be completely dependent upon politicians for your medical care, as Canadians are today. That's why if you need an MRI in Canada, you have to wait three months - unless you pay certain kinds of homage to the right politicians.

The political maturity of a country is measured by what citizens willingly do for themselves and one another.

The business society is interested in training its citizens to make money, and, in this objective, it is often successful. Many of them do make money, and the ones who do not obligingly regard themselves as failures who have wasted the precious gift of life.

We have been very effectively pacified by the pernicious ideology of a consumer society that is centered on the cult of the self - an undiluted hedonism and narcissism. That has become a very effective way to divert our attention while the country is reconfigured into a kind of neofeudalism, with a rapacious oligarchic elite and an anemic government that no longer is able to intercede on behalf of citizens but cravenly serves the interests of the oligarchy itself.

Democracy is not just voting for your leaders; it's really premised upon ordinary citizens understanding the issues.

I promise that as a president elected in a direct popular vote, I will try to be the voice of all citizens.

It will be the duty of the Executive, with sufficient appropriations for the purpose, to prosecute unsparingly all who have been engaged in depriving citizens of the rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution.

Only you and I who love Jesus and have Him now before this life's death will be able to be among the special super-citizens of the Heavenly City, a special super-class of people!

I 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.

There's huge opportunities to continue to improve efficiency in the way the government operates and improve the way government provides services to its citizens.

When you look at the damage that many of the policies that Donald Trump has proposed can do to our citizens of the US - you can compare him to Major Storms Harvey, Irma, Maria. We're talking about life or death issues and about repealing the Affordable Care Act. There are lives at stake. Something that would affect millions and millions of people. I think it's totally appropriate. Obviously, it's a metaphor. It's not to be taken literally. But I mean that when I talk about the damage and the trauma that has been brought into our lives because of his presidency, that that's very real.

Finally, it is my most fervent prayer to that Almighty Being before whom I now stand, and who has kept us in His hands from the infancy of our Republic to the present day, that He will so overrule all my intentions and actions and inspire the hearts of my fellow-citizens that we may be preserved from dangers of all kinds and continue forever a united and happy people.

They can say that abortion is alright. They can vote to sustain gay marriage. And that will take western civilization, indeed other nations because people look to our country as one nation as under God and whenever we legislate sin and we say abortion is permissible and we say gay unions are permissible, then average citizens who are not Christians, because they don't know better, we are leading them astray and it's wrong.

People don't do good work when they feel like losers and are second class citizens within their own company.

My assessment of Julian Assange is a professional one, really, of what he's managed to achieve, and the idea that he came up with, which set the world alight and continues to inspire others like Snowden [NSA leaker Edward Snowden], about the secret goings-on that are done in our name with our tax dollars on behalf of big business or politics. He launched the revolutionary idea that citizens can start to claim back a paradigm for questioning power structures and those in authority through an anonymous, whistle-blowing website.

Whenever citizens are seen routinely as enemies of their own government, writers are rountinely seen to be the most dangerous enemies.

If they [Mexicans] touch the hair of the head of one of our citizens, tell him [Commodore Dallas] to batter down and destroy their town and exterminate the inhabitants from the face of the earth!

[I]t's impossible to evade the fact that Endless War will inevitably degrade the citizenry of the country that engages in it. A country which venerates its military above all other institutions, which demands that its soldiers be spoken of only with religious-like worship, and which continuously indoctrinates its population to believe that endless violence against numerous countries is necessary and just - all by instilling intense fear of the minorities who are the target of that endless violence - will be a country filled with citizens convinced of the virtues and nobility of aggression.

We may continue to expect the enjoyment of all the blessings of civil and religious liberty, guaranteed by the Constitution. The citizens of Illinois have done themselves honor, in throwing the mantle of the Constitution over a persecuted and afflicted people.

We are contemporary citizens living in a technological world. Swimming in crosscultural waters can be dangerous, and if you are honest you can't stay there very long. Sooner or later you have to look at your own reflection and decide what to do with yourself. We are urban people. We make periodic pilgrimages to the country. . . . If we align ourselves with the spirit of place we will find humility fused with joy. The land holds stories.

The breaking of so great a thing should make A greater crack: the round world Should have shook lions into civil streets, And citizens to their dens.

The outraged citizens of Indonesia - lawyers, doctors, engineers, scientists - should be speaking up; they should be shouting. And of course, the voices of farmers and workers, their terrible stories, should be read and heard from the pages of independent magazines and blogs, from YouTube and independent films.