Quotes About Citizens

We are bound by ideals that teach us what it means to be citizens. Every child must be taught these ideals. Every citizen must uphold them.... I ask you to be citizens. Citizens, not spectators. Citizens, not subjects. Responsible citizens building communities of service and a nation of character.

Your constitution guarantees to every citizen, even the humblest, the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property. It promises to all, religious freedom, the right to all to worship God beneath their own vine and fig tree, according to the dictates of their conscience. It guarantees to all the citizens of the several states the right to become citizens of any one of the states, and to enjoy all the rights and immunities of the citizens of the state of his adoption.

Jefferson, though the secret vote was still unknown at the time had at least a foreboding of how dangerous it might be to allow the people to share a public power without providing them at the same time with more public space than the ballot box and with more opportunity to make their voices heard in public than on election day. What he perceived to be the mortal danger to the republic was that the Constitution had given all power to the citizens, without giving them the opportunity of being citizens and of acting as citizens.

Things have changed in Latin America now. We mostly have democratic governments in Latin America, so the position of the writer has changed. It is not as Neruda used to say, that a Latin American writer walks around with the body of his people on his back. Now, we have citizens, we have public means of expression, political parties, congress, unions. So, the writer's position has changed, we now consider ourselves to be citizens - not spokespeople for everybody - but citizens that participate in the political and social process of the country.

I think when I close my eyes what I think is 4,500 days or so, 4,250 I guess days, was long enough to give Iraq to come into compliance with the international order. And I think to myself how many Iraqi citizens died under the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein during those 4,200 odd days, and I think to myself how many more citizens of how many nations, the United States, Israel, or any other neighbor would die if Saddam Hussein went unchecked, though I am just grieved by the sacrifice of our brave men and women, but I think ultimately the greater good is served.

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.

I believe everybody in the world should have guns. Citizens should have bazookas and rocket launchers too. I believe that all citizens should have their weapons of choice. However, I also believe that only I should have the ammunition. Because frankly, I wouldn't trust the rest of the goobers with anything more dangerous than string.

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.

Ours is a nation of laws: of citizens who live under them and for the citizens who enforce them. So, to a community in Ferguson that is rightly hurting and looking for answers, let me call once again for us to seek some understanding rather than simply holler at each other. Let's seek to heal rather than to wound each other.

Women are prevented by the threat and reality of male violence from entering public space on equal terms with male citizens.

I do care if religious doctrine becomes an excuse to exclude my fellow citizens from the rights and protections our country promises.

Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have.

The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing "God Bless America." No, no, no, God d*mn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people. God d*mn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God d*mn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.

The government was set to protect man from criminals-and the constitution was written to protect man from the government. The Bill of Rights was not directed at private citizens, but against the government-as an explicit declaration that individual rights supersede any public or social power.

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.

It is not healthy when a nation lives within a nation, as colored Americans are living inside America. A nation cannot live confident of its tomorrow if its refugees are among its own citizens.

The value of science to a republican people, the security it gives to liberty by enlightening the minds of its citizens, the protection it affords against foreign power, the virtue it inculcates, the just emulation of the distinction it confers on nations foremost in it; in short, its identification with power, morals, order and happiness (which merits to it premiums of encouragement rather than repressive taxes), are considerations [that should] always [be] present and [bear] with their just weight.

Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens.

When Laura Poitras asked me if she could film our encounters, I was extremely reluctant. I’m grateful that I allowed her to persuade me. The result is a brave and brilliant film that deserves the honor and recognition it has received. My hope is that this award will encourage more people to see the film and be inspired by its message that ordinary citizens, working together, can change the world.

Bad men cannot make good citizens. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience are incompatible with freedom.

The painter paints, the musician makes music, the novelist writes novels. But I believe that we all have some influence, not because of the fact that one is an artist, but because we are citizens.

So we just hope that all of these governors who are grappling will be able to provide the basic services to our citizens and not have to cut things that really are painful.

The framers of our Constitution understood the dangers of unbridled government surveillance. They knew that democracy could flourish only in spaces free from government snooping and interference, and they put restraints on government overreaching in the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights. . . . These protections require, at a minimum, a neutral arbiter - a magistrate - standing between the government's endless desire for information and the citizens' desires for privacy.

We are citizens of an age, as well as of a State; and if it is held to be unseemly, or even inadmissible, for a man to cut himself off from the customs and manners of the circle in which he lives, why should it be less of a duty, in the choice of his activity, to submit his decision to the needs and the taste of his century?

At death we cross from one territory to another, but we'll have no trouble with visas. Our representative is already there, preparing for our arrival. As citizens of heaven, our entrance is incontestable.

Whether you have an abortion, what you put in your own body, with whom you have sex - these are not affairs of the state. A government does not exist to control the citizens. When it does, it is a tyranny, and must be fought. The tree of liberty, Jefferson warned us, must be refreshed with the blood of tyrants and patriots.

Baseball may be our national pastime, but the age-old tradition of taking a swing at Congress is a sport with even deeper historical roots in the American experience. Since the founding of our country, citizens from Ben Franklin to David Letterman have made fun of their elected officials.

The more profoundly we study this wonderful Book, and the more closely we observe its divine precepts, the better citizens we will become and the higher will be our destiny as a nation.

Donald Trump is going to remain completely focused on American citizens and people who are here legally, and how we get this country working for people who play by the rules.

Islam is a vibrant faith. Millions of our fellow citizens are Muslim. We respect the faith. We honor its traditions. Our enemy does not. Our enemy doesn't follow the great traditions of Islam. They've hijacked a great religion.

Decades of record immigration have produced lower wages and higher unemployment for our citizens, especially for African American and Latino workers. We are going to have an immigration system that works, but one that works for the American people.

This is what I'm good at. I like meeting people, my fellow citizens, I like interfacing with them.

Obamacare is the nation's biggest job killer and stands in the way of our country's economic growth and prosperity. It should be defunded and repealed. President Obama should hear the pleas from the untold number of Americans who are losing their jobs, wages, and healthcare plans, and Congress should act immediately to stop Obamacare from inflicting any more damage on the country on our hard-working citizens.

Americans tote guns because they're assertive citizens, not docile subjects of a permanent governing class. They love their military because they think there's something contemptible about Europeans preening and posing as a great power when they can't even stop some nickel'n'dime Balkan genital-severers piling up hundreds of thousands of corpses on their borders.

More and more, the choice for the world's people is between becoming world warriors or world citizens.

We have a right to expect a police force that protects our citizens and behaves in a responsible manner... in the American conscience there is no room for bigotry and racism.

The First Amendment was specifically designed for citizens to insult politicians. Libel laws were written to protect law students speaking out on political issues from getting called whores by Oxycontin addicts.

Leaving Iraq without military assistance during its transition, and before it is stable enough to ensure its own citizens' security, would pose a tremendous risk. We must complete our mission.

Many citizens see all the leadership of these large institutions together in a conspiracy against them rather than in any adversary relationship with each other.

The most basic duty of government is to defend the lives of its own citizens. Any government that fails to do so is a government unworthy to lead.

If its individual citizens, to a man, are to be believed, it always is depressed, and always is stagnated, and always is at an alarming crisis, and never was otherwise; though as a body, they are ready to make oath upon the Evangelists, at any hour of the day or night, that it is the most thriving and prosperous of all countries on the habitable globe.

When I was at Upright Citizens Brigade, I would pretend to be a sad, drunk rapper.

Those gentlemen, who will be elected senators, will fix themselves in the federal town, and become citizens of that town more than of your state.

We all have an obligation as citizens of this earth to leave the world a healthier, cleaner, and better place for our children and future generations.

On becoming soldiers we have not ceased to be citizens.

NC LIVE has the potential to give citizens across North Carolina immediate access to the rich array of information resources housed by the libraries on UNC's 16 campuses. It will allow unprecedented collaboration and sharing of resources among sister UNC institutions, the community colleges, and the state's public libraries.

We assume that we've come so far as compassionate citizens of the world if we do choose to read the news, yet the attitude towards life can be one where we put blinders on and forget that there are civil wars going on. It's easy to forget that there are so many people starving to death every single day.

If citizens followed their leaders' example throughout history, the human race would have died out centuries ago.