Quotes & Sayings About Being Citizens Of The World

Being satisfied, from observation and experience, as well as from medical testimony, that ardent spirit as a drink is not only needless but hurtful; and that the entire disuse of it would tend to promote the health, the virtue, and the happiness of the community, we hereby express our convention that should the citizens of the United States, and especially ALL YOUNG MEN, discontinue entirely the use of it, they would not only promote their own personal benefit, but the good of our country and the world. — Andrew Jackson

When you live in the United States, with the roar of the free market, the roar of this huge military power, the roar of being at the heart of empire, it's hard to hear the whispering of the rest of the world. And I think many US citizens want to. I don't think that all of them necessarily are co-conspirators in this concept of empire. And those who are not, need to listen to other stories in the world - other voices, other people. — Arundhati Roy

We have much to contribute to the world; ways of knowing and being that are going to be essential to everyone's survival on our planet. As true citizens of Australia, properly acknowledged in our constitution, we can look forward not only to improving our own lot, but helping Australia contribute to the well-being of all the world's peoples. — Patrick Dodson

A politics of struggle is rooted in values and vision, and above all trust. It involves a compact a candidate makes with the people who share the values, who embrace the vision. It doesn't say, "Vote for me and I'll fix everything." It says, "If I get elected, I will not just work for you, I will work with you." The work may mean implementing a program at the local level or sponsoring legislation at the federal level, but what matters most is the connection that is made between people and their elected representative- the connection that says there is someone on the inside who is going to fight for the citizen outside the halls of power. When citizens recognize that this fight is being waged, they are energized. They make bigger demands. They build stronger movements. They forge a politics that is about transforming a city, a state, a nation, and maybe the world. — Bernie Sanders

I'm asking Muslims in the West a very basic question: Will we remain spiritually infantile, caving to cultural pressures to clam up and conform, or will we mature into full-fledged citizens, defending the very pluralism that allows us to be in this part of the world in the first place? My question for non-Muslims is equally basic: Will you succumb to the intimidation of being called "racists," or will you finally challenge us Muslims to take responsibility for our role in what ails Islam? — Irshad Manji

Being born in Cuba, a country where freedom of speech is non-existent, it's startling to observe how Venezuela, where I was happily raised, is fast becoming Cuba's mirror image: Dismantling of fundamental democratic rights deserved by its people and citizens of the world. — Maria Conchita Alonso

To be a mother is the greatest vocation in the world. No being has a position of such great power and influence. She holds in her hands the destiny of nations, for to her is necessarily committed the making of the nation's citizens. — Hannah Whitall Smith

The Israeli military plays more than a critical role in defending the citizens of the Jewish state. It also plays an important social, scientific and psychological role in preparing its young citizens for the challenging task of being Israelis in a difficult world. — Alan Dershowitz

The world is changing because we're changing it. And that makes me understand, at least, what kind of person I'd like to be. A person can seek ways, whether big or small, to heal the world. That, to me, is spirituality and one's 'soul.' Not some disembodied eternal wishfulness but a way of being that, most days, I can work on. Life is like walking with a flashlight on a dark night. You can't see your destination, but each step illuminates the next few steps, and, taking one after another, you can get where you need to go. Only now, we'll need to quicken our pace if we are to avoid major upheaval in this century. It's up to us not just as individuals but as citizens of nations and of the world. — Carl Safina

That one indeed is a man who, today, dedicateth himself to the service of the entire human race. The Great Being saith: Blessed and happy is he that ariseth to promote the best interests of the peoples and kindreds of the earth. It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens. — Baha'u'llah

We have learned that we cannot live alone, at peace; that our own well-being is dependent on the well-being of nations far away. We have learned that we must live as men, and not as ostriches nor as dogs in the manger. We have learned to be citizens of the world, members of the human community. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

It is always a joy to meet an American, Mr. Moulton, for I am one of those who believes that the folly of a monarch and the blundering of a minister in far-gone years will not prevent our children from being some day citizens of the same world-wide country under a flag which shall be a quartering of the Union Jack with the Stars and Stripes. — Arthur Conan Doyle

It's a little bit about being a global citizen, with all the United Nations positive umph that there is with that phrase - it's about being a positive do-gooder. But it's also: how can I participate in globalization in a really clear way? Like: don't leave the house unless you can bring something worthy into the world. And so Nicaragua changed the way that I want to do things. — Anne Elizabeth Moore

We can hardly pride ourselves on being the world's preeminent democracy, after all, if the large numbers of citizens spend half their waking hours in what amounts, in plain terms, to a dictatorship. — Barbara Ehrenreich

Saving the world requires saving democracy. That requires well-informed citizens. Conservation, environment, poverty, community, education, family, health, economy- these combine to make one quest: liberty and justice for all. Whether one's special emphasis is global warming or child welfare, the cause is the same cause. And justice comes from the same place being human comes from: compassion. — Carl Safina

In addition to all that, a man may have any opinions he likes without that being any of the sovereign's business. Having no standing in the other world, the sovereign has no concern with what may lie in wait for its subjects in the life to come, provided they are good citizens in this life. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

"Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife! To all the sensual world proclaim, One crowded hour of glorious life Is worth an age without a name". Do not then (concludes the Stoic) take good words in your mouth, and prate before applauding citizens of honour, duty, and so forth, while you make your private lives a mere selfish calculation of expediency. We were surely born for nobler ends than this, and none who is worthy the name of a man would subscribe to doctrines which destroy all honour and all chivalry. The heroes of old time won their immortality not by weighing pleasures and pains in the balance, but by being prodigal of their lives, doing and enduring all things for the sake of their fellow-men. — W. Lucas Collins

Every sensitive person should make his point of view let known, at least, to one person other than yourself on every subject that gets you worked up. This is basic to every social being. And like theory of vibration it gains momentum as the time passes. However, it also happens that it can turn out to be wasted effort. Because we are common people. The fact that we are of no consequence, so are our utterances and statements, makes us indifferent to a lot of issues and situations around us. However, in a set-up we live in, it becomes incumbent upon every educated individual to air our views for the general good of all. Like wise, as public-spirited individuals we must believe in doing something, rather than grumble at home over the breakfast table that the World is not a pleasant place. After all, lighting a lamp is wiser than cursing the darkness. — Manasa Rao

Let us make recommendations to ensure that NASA officials deal in a world of reality, understanding technological weaknesses and imperfections well enough to be actively trying to eliminate them. They must live in a world of reality in comparing the costs and utility of the shuttle to other methods of entering space. And they must be realistic in making contracts and in estimating the costs and difficulties of each project. Only realistic flight schedules should be proposed -- schedules that have a reasonable chance of being met. If in this way the government would not support NASA, the so be it. NASA owes it to the citizens from whom it asks support to be frank, honest, and informative, so that these citizens can make the wisest decisions for the use of their limited resources. — Richard Feynman

Mennonites formed themselves in Holland five hundred years ago after a man named Menno Simons became so moved by hearing Anabaptist prisoners singing hymns before being executed by the Spanish Inquisition that he joined their cause and became their leader. Then they started to move all around the world in colonies looking for freedom and isolation and peace and opportunities to sell cheese. Different countries give us shelter if we agree to stay out of trouble and help with the economy by farming in obscurity. We live like ghosts. Then, sometimes, those countries decide they want us to be real citizens after all and start to force us to do things like join the army or pay taxes or respect laws and then we pack our stuff up in the middle of the night and move to another country where we can live purely but somewhat out of context. — Miriam Toews

. . . the authors had developed indices that could be employed to measure the state of a civilization, to determine if society was healthy, in decline, or perhaps even dead. The indicators keyed in on everything from the accumulation of refuse to declines in everyday civility. They looked at how a society treated its most vulnerable citizens; examined a culture's architecture, gauging its scale in relation to humans and the surrounding natural world. One of the primary indicators, however, was a measure of the ability of a society's citizens to listen to each other and truly hear what was being said. It evaluated by gradations the ability of individuals to stand motionless for prolonged periods, receptive to their surroundings. — Robert H. Lieberman

If we can't think for ourselves, if we're unwilling to question authority, then we're just putty in the hands of those in power. But if the citizens are educated and form their own opinions, then those in power work for us. In every country, we should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit. In the demon-haunted world that we inhabit by virtue of being human, this may be all that stands between us and the enveloping darkness. — Carl Sagan

I have been the patient one. I have waited for the world to stop being silly. I have waited for it to stop wars. I have waited for politicians to be honest. I have waited for real estate men to be good citizens. But while I wait, I dance! — Ray Bradbury

This kind of understanding - seeing the world (as we rather tritely say today) from the other fellow's point of view - is the political kind of insight par excellence. If we wanted to define, traditionally, the one outstanding virtue of the statesman, we could say that it consists in understanding the greatest possible number and variety of realities - not of subjective viewpoints, which of course also exist but which do not concern us here - as those realities open themselves up to the various opinions of citizens; and, at the same time, in being able to communicate between the citizens and their opinions so that the commonness of this world becomes apparent. — Hannah Arendt

It is in a way a mystery that, instead of demanding that their governments give primary attention to their own needs and aspirations, most of the citizens of big counties-those, that is, that have the status of being "powers" in the world-far from being self-centered or materialistic as they are commonly credited with being, the ordinary citizen and his elected representative all too often turn out to be romantics, ready and eager to sacrifice programs of health, education and welfare for the power and pride of the nation ... — J. William Fulbright