Citizen Responsibilities Quotes & Sayings

There is a kind of dictatorship that can come about through a creeping paralysis of thought, readiness to accept paternalistic measures by government, and along with those measures comes a surrender of our own responsibilities and therefore a surrender of our own thought over our own lives and our own right to exercise the vote. The free system gives the right to every citizen to do something for himself. Because he has the right, the opportunity is always there. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

The state has gradually annexed all the responsibilities of adulthood - health care, child care, care of the elderly - to the point where it's effectively severed its citizens from humanity's primal instincts, not the least the survival instinct...They corrode the citizen's sense of self-reliance to a potentially fatal degree. — Mark Steyn

Looking out over the port of Dover, with the endless steam of boats coming in and out, every British citizen is reminded that belonging here has never been about blood or genes. It's simply about being at home on this discrete island and being aware of the privileges and responsibilities that brings. — Julian Baggini

You are a citizen, and citizenship carries responsibilities. — Paul Collier

For, in a democracy, every citizen, regardless of his interest in politics, 'holds office'; every one of us is in a position of responsibility; and, in the final analysis, the kind of government we get depends upon how we fulfill those responsibilities. We, the people, are the boss, and we will get the kind of political leadership, be it good or bad, that we demand and deserve. — John F. Kennedy

Since the days of Greece and Rome, when 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 Kennedy

I'm less concerned about whether being a good corporate citizen burnishes a company's reputation. That's just an added benefit. I believe it's a responsibility, and there is no negotiating on responsibilities. — Ursula Burns

I don't speak out because I am an actor nor will I keep silent because I am an actor. I respect my profession, but it endows me with no special privileges; but it also does not limit me or muzzle me. I am a person and a citizen with the attendant responsibilities of voice and vote. — Theodore Bikel

In becoming a citizen, one undertakes certain duties and responsibilities. One of the more intangible of those duties and responsibilities is no matter what one's birth and background, to accept the historical past of the new country as one's own. — J.M. Coetzee

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are as much every U.S. citizen's wars as they are the veterans' wars. If we don't assume that civilians have just as much ownership and the moral responsibilities that we have as a nation when we embark on something like that, then we're in a very bad situation. — Phil Klay

It [the State] has taken on a vast mass of new duties and responsibilities; it has spread out its powers until they penetrate to every act of the citizen, however secret; it has begun to throw around its operations the high dignity and impeccability of a State religion; its agents become a separate and superior caste, with authority to bind and loose, and their thumbs in every pot. But it still remains, as it was in the beginning, the common enemy of all well-disposed, industrious and decent men. — H.L. Mencken

Standing behind" a politician just because you voted for him or her does not make you patriotic, or loyal, or even smart - what it does make you is derelict in your responsibilities as a citizen. — Joseph Befumo

When you put the interest of a kid on money instead of heart then you're destroying the beauty of our lives and our thought process, which should be about how much responsibilities you carry as an athlete and a citizen. — Alexis Arguello

Unchecked, government social programs are a security threat because they weaken the ultimate line of defense: the free-born citizen whose responsibilities are not subcontracted to the government. — Mark Steyn

I would never sacrifice my individual beliefs as a citizen to my corporate responsibilities. — George W. Romney

One of the loveliest weddings I ever performed was that of a gay couple. To me if you are a good citizen, you pay your taxes, you work, you should have all the rights and responsibilities of everybody else. — Judy Sheindlin

Every person is created in the image of God and has value. Every person. Every person is to be treated with respect. Every person is also a citizen of some country. In their country, they have rights and responsibilities; in every other country, they are a guest. — James Lankford

Tonight, I am a private citizen. To-morrow I shall be called to assume new responsibilities, and on the day after, the broadside of the world's wrath will strike. It will strike hard. I know it, and you will know it. — Candice Millard

Pointed out that the corporation enjoys the same rights as a living person under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. This concept was upheld in 1886 by the Supreme Court in 'Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company' and has been a fact of law ever since. I emphasized to those executives that the corporation should also be required to accept the same responsibilities as those expected of a person; it too should be a good citizen, an honorable, ethical member of the community. In the case of international corporations, that community has to be defined as the world. — John Perkins

YOUNG: Self-appointed advisors have taken this line about Negro responsibility almost solely, and these are the very people who in the past have been largely indifferent to the plight of the Negro citizen, they've been people who fought against civil rights. I'm thinking of columnists like David Lawrence and Fulton Lewis. Now these are the people who speak of Negroes' assuming certain responsibilities before these rights are to be given. — Robert Penn Warren

At first, it seemed bizarre to find the progressive left making common cause with radical Islam. One half of the alliance professed to be pro-gay, pro-feminist, pro-whatever's-your-bag secularists; the other half were homophobic, misogynist, anti-any-groove-you-dig theocrats...it made no sense. But in fact what they had in common overrode their superficially more obvious incompatibilities, both the secular Big Government progressive and the political Islam recoiled from the concept of the citizen, of the free individual entrusted to operate within his own space, assume his responsibilities, and exploit his potential. — Mark Steyn

What comes forth from you as an artist cannot be controlled. But you have responsibilities as a global citizen. Your history dictates your duty. And by writing about black people, you are not limiting yourself. The experiences of African-Americans are as wide open as God's closet. — August Wilson