Quotes & Sayings About Citizens

I ask citizens and governments everywhere to do their part by conserving energy and reducing the use of fossil fuels for the good of the world community. This is our duty to those who share this world with us and to those who follow us: Wherever we see a threat to our environment we must take action — Arnold Schwarzenegger

There is no question that a society that sets out to control its citizens' use of drugs sets out on the slippery path to totalitarianism. — Terence McKenna

The Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity or Libertad Act of 1996, better known as the Helms-Burton Act, was passed by the 104th United States Congress on March 6, 1996 and enacted into law by President Bill Clinton on March 12, 1996. Its intention was to bolster and continue the United States embargo against Cuba. It also opposes Cuban membership in international institutions, and prohibits commercial television broadcasts from the United States to Cuba. Further, the law provides for protection of the property rights of certain United States nationals and the property formerly owned by U.S. citizens but confiscated by Cuba after the Cuban revolution, The Act is named for the original sponsors, Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, and Representative Dan Burton of Indiana. — Hank Bracker

The murderers of the three Bytyqi brothers, New York residents who were executed by Serbian Ministry of Interior personnel in 1999, have never been prosecuted. The U.S. government cannot accept that the murderers of three of its citizens go unpunished. — Michael Kirby

In order to stave off covetouness, greed, and spite, citizens world over must be educated. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

He is certainly not a good citizen who does not wish to promote, by every means in his power, the welfare of the whole society of his fellow citizens." That is Adam Smith talking, the apostle of laissez-faire. — Charles Murray

We 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 Levin

There is a duality to South Africa, as in all of life itself, that is evident, and as stark as the inequality among its citizens — Diane Brown

We live through the belief of children ... Regicide is suicide, citizens. Inscribe that in your hearts. The Great Pretend is a fragile construct. — Bill Willingham

I have introduced a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and make it clear that the Congress and state legislatures do have the ability and the power to regulate and get corporate funding out of political campaigns. — Bernie Sanders

If people are being upstanding citizens of the Republic, then you have to widen the net to incarcerate them. This explains why America's prisons are full of nonviolent offenders - a perfect example of American exceptionalism. — Henry Rollins

My administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens. Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a nation. — Barack Obama

Our fellow Negro citizens could be summed up in something Tessie said after watching Sidney Poitier's performance in To Sir with Love, which opened a month before the riots. She said, You see, they can speak perfectly normal if they want. — Jeffrey Eugenides

As always with any discussion of elite immunity, it's crucial to note that what makes this development such a particularly warped travesty is that the very same elites who enjoy this immunity have created the world's largest, and the Western world's most oppressive and merciless, penal state for ordinary citizens. — Glenn Greenwald

A republican form of government requires four standards: It demands a highly educated population manifesting critical thinking that participates in the affairs of the nation. It requires that citizens invest in a similar moral code. It insists on a mutual ethical system abided by all. It must engender a single language whereby all citizens can discuss, debate, come to resolution and initiate mutual beneficial action for their society. — Frosty Wooldridge

The founders of our nation feared paper currency because it gave government the means to steal from its citizens. — Walter E. Williams

A song has a few rights the same as ordinary citizens ... if it happens to feel like flying where humans cannot fly ... to scale mountains that are not there, who shall stop it? — Charles Ives

[There is] a duty in refusing to cooperate in any undertaking that violates the Constitutional rights of the individual. This holds in particular for all inquisitions that are concerned with the private life and the political affiliations of the citizens. — Albert Einstein

We find these joys to be self evident: That all children are created whole, endowed with innate intelligence, with dignity and wonder, worthy of respect. The embodiment of life, liberty and happiness, children are original blessings, here to learn their own song. Every girl and boy is entitled to love, to dream and belong to a loving "village." And to pursue a life of purpose.
We affirm our duty to nourish and nurture the young, to honour their caring ideals as the heart of being human. To recognize the early years as the foundation of life, and to cherish the contribution of young children to human evolution.
We commit ourselves to peaceful ways and vow to keep from harm or neglect these, our most vulnerable citizens. As guardians of their prosperity we honour the bountiful Earth whose diversity sustains us. Thus we pledge our love for generations to come. — Raffi Cavoukian

If there is one fact we really can prove, from the history that we really do know, it is that despotism can be a development, often a late development and very often indeed the end of societies that have been highly democratic. A despotism may almost be defined as a tired democracy. As fatigue falls on a community, the citizens are less inclined for that eternal vigilance which has truly been called the price of liberty; and they prefer to arm only one single sentinel to watch the city while they sleep. — G.K. Chesterton

Children are like buds in a garden and should be carefully and lovingly nurtured, as they are the future of the nation and the citizens of tomorrow. — Jawaharlal Nehru

More than half the world's largest 100 economies are corporations. They have no loyalties to place or citizens. — Zac Goldsmith

The hunger for change is the desire to make a change. — Lailah Gifty Akita

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

We Americans claim to be a peace-loving people. We hate bloodshed; we are opposed to violence. Yet we go into spasms of joy over the possibility of projecting dynamite bombs from flying machines upon helpless citizens. We are ready to hang, electrocute, or lynch anyone, who, from economic necessity, will risk his own life in the attempt upon that of some industrial magnate. Yet our hearts swell with pride at the thought that America is becoming the most powerful nation on earth, and that she will eventually plant her iron foot on the necks of all other nations.
Such is the logic of patriotism. — Emma Goldman

On almost all issues, citizens could not identify the stands of the candidates
as intended. — Noam Chomsky

If you, the citizen, deliberately vote for someone who won't give you healthcare over someone who will, you need to have your head examined. Except you can't afford to have your head examined. — Bill Maher

Within the market society each serves all his fellow citizens and each is served by them. It is a system of mutual exchange of services and commodities, a mutual giving, and receiving. — Ludwig Von Mises

The essence will be evident everywhere. In all that the citizens do: in their art, music, food, and their buildings. If the essence of a place nourishes your spirit, then it is a good place to be -Rovender — Tony DiTerlizzi

Property that endangers the safety of a nation should not be suffered to remain in the hands of its citizens. — Robert Dale Owen

The tyrant, who in order to hold his power, suppresses every superiority, does away with good men, forbids education and light, controls every movement of the citizens and, keeping them under a perpetual servitude, wants them to grow accustomed to baseness and cowardice, has his spies everywhere to listen to what is said in the meetings, and spreads dissension and calumny among the citizens and impoverishes them, is obliged to make war in order to keep his subjects occupied and impose on them permanent need of a chief. — Aristotle.

Our country is too large to have all its affairs directed by a single government. Public servants at such a distance, and from under the eye of their constituents, must, from the circumstance of distance, be unable to administer and overlook all the details necessary for the good government of the citizens; and the same circumstance, by rendering detection impossible to their constituents, will invite public agents to corruption, plunder and waste. — Thomas Jefferson

What are we going to do if citizens are disarmed, and the government doesn't obey its own laws? — Jeff Cooper

The siren song of redistribution of wealth by centralized government never ceases for those who seek irreversible and unusurpable control over the lives and liberties of private citizens. — Josh Jones

Enrolling in the Medicare Prescription Drug Program will be a great savings for most senior citizens. — Paul Gillmor

Of course we all know people who aren't cut out for college, but I know it's a mistake to think of education only as a route to a better career. Reading books, studying history - all these things contribute to making us better citizens, too. — Rebecca Mead

The only legitimate purpose of government is to serve citizens, and ... the only legitimate purpose of technology is to improve our lives, not to manipulate or enslave us. — Rebecca MacKinnon

I inherited from my father and still nourish the notion that Republicans are those who have acquired enough money, often by inheritance and blind luck, to entertain the opinion that their fellow citizens should work harder and be more grateful to the moneyed class while they refrain from work themselves and sit in clean rooms with folded soft hands examining their bank statements and brokerage reports. — Bill Holm

The NSA is not looking through people's address books and Visa bills and violating the rights of average citizens. That's not what the NSA does. — Michael Gerson

Frequent mobs, seditions, and at last civil wars, became common, while a few leading men on whom the masses were dependent, affected supreme power under the seemly pretence of seeking the good of senate and people; citizens were judged good or bad, without reference to their loyalty to the republic (for all were equally corrupt); but the wealthy and dangerously powerful were esteemed good citizens, because they maintained the existing state of things. — Sallust

Any school for free citizens must begin by teaching distrust, not trust. It must teach questioning, not acceptance of stock answers. — Brian Herbert

Calling all citizens all over the world, this is Captain America calling. — Ray Davies

The modern world is one wherein every nation has to develop the strength of which its citizens are capable. The independent status of the individual, his thoughts and actions become a thing of the past. — Chiang Kai-shek

It was not that donors had no loyalty to each other, but they were not ashamed to betray a fellow donor. In its wisdom the Alliance promulgated the moral rules - the main one being one's duty to the Alliance. The Alliance was sacred - all else secondary. But not all donors - or citizens - bought into that. Many knew in their hearts there was more to life. — Cate Campbell Beatty

Think of the undying glory that hangs around the ancient name of Africa and forget not that you are native-born American citizens, and as such, you are justly entitled to all the rights that are granted to the freest. — Henry Highland Garnet

Your neighbors are not all sheep. Your political opponents are not all evil or fools. Try talking to those you despise. They are your fellow citizens. And together, we are not lesser than any "greatest generation.". — David Brin

My dreams were always small and puny. All I ever needed was a little house with a little picket fence by the sea. Little did I know that I would live in Malacanang Palace for 20 years and visit all the major palaces of mankind. And then also meet ordinary citizens and the leaders of superpowers. — Imelda Marcos

Freedom is a struggle, and we do it together. Not only together as black citizens, but black and white together. — Andrew Young

All the citizens of a state cannot be equally powerful, but they may be equally free — Voltaire

Chicago's privatization mania began during Mayor Richard M. Daley's administration, which ran from 1989 to 2011. Under his successor, Rahm Emanuel, the trend has continued apace. For Rahm's investment banker buddies, the trend has been a boon. For citizens? Not so much. — Rick Perlstein

We need to be very well aware of the fact that China and Russia are using technology to attack us, just as ISIS is using technology to recruit those who would murder American citizens. — Carly Fiorina

To be a born American citizen seems a guarantee against pauperism; and this, perhaps, springs from the virtue of a vote. — Herman Melville

In a republican nation, whose citizens are to be led by reason and persuasion and not by force, the art of reasoning becomes of first importance — Thomas Jefferson

Services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia. — Ezekiel Emanuel

As the interned American citizens of Japanese descent learned, the Bill of Rights provided them with little protection when it was needed. — Glenn Reynolds

A government that does not trust it's law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms is itself unworthy of trust. — James Madison

Now and always, we expect to insist upon it that we are Americans, that America is our native land; that this is our home; that we are American citizens . . . and that it is the duty of the American people so to recognize us. - FREDERICK DOUGLASS A — Elizabeth Dowling Taylor

A committed citizens can move a country. — Lailah Gifty Akita

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

One of the great strengths of the United States is ... we have a very large Christian population - we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values. — Barack Obama

Before we are citizens, we are children, and it is as children that we come to understand freedom and authority, liberty and duty. — Orson Scott Card

Of all second-class citizens, neurotics are the only ones who are so by choice. — Mignon McLaughlin

American democracy is supposed to be the paradigm for the rest of the world, and it no longer is. Citizens cannot be guaranteed that they can walk into a voting booth with any assurance that their vote will be counted. — Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

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

We need to understand that we as citizens and as a government in any community throughout this country have no more important obligation than to educate those who are going to replace us. — Colin Powell

In the history of mankind many republics have risen, have flourished for a less or greater time, and then have fallen because their citizens lost the power of governing themselves and thereby of governing their state; and in no way has this loss of power been so often and so clearly shown as in the tendency to turn the government into a government primarily for the benefit of one class instead of a government for the benefit of the people as a whole. — Theodore Roosevelt

Full democracy requires the full participation of women. Your voices are vital. The word 'vital' means necessary for life. A democracy, to be fully alive, must include all its citizens. — Swanee Hunt

To engage human energy, human skill, and human talent in the service of peace, for the alternative is unthinkable - war, destruction, and desolation; and to build a world community which will stand as a lasting monument to the millions of men and women, to such devoted and distinguished world citizens and fighters for peace as the late Dag Hammarskjold, who have given their lives that we may live in happiness and peace ... — Albert Lutuli

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. — Kenneth W. Royce

And from all these evils they will be delivered, and their life will be blessed as the life of Olympic victors and yet more blessed. How so? The Olympic victor, I said, is deemed happy in receiving a part only of the blessedness which is secured to our citizens, who have won a more glorious victory and have a more complete maintenance at the public cost. For the victory which they have won is the salvation of the whole State; and the crown with which they and their children are crowned is the fulness of all that life needs; they receive rewards from the hands of their country while living, and after death have an honourable burial. Yes, — Plato

I extend my greetings and good wishes to all our citizens on the joyous occasion of Deepawali. The festival of lights, celebrated with gaiety and enthusiasm all over the country, signifies the victory of good over evil and is an appropriate occasion for us to resolve to follow the high ideals in life. — Mohammad Hamid Ansari

It was such a dismal time in Japan. It almost seemed as if they were dying as a people, their economy in tatters, the population dwindling, the remaining citizens isolated and adrift. Had they been wrong about everything? Kenzo wondered. The power of consensus and obligation, the imperatives of racial purity and harmony? — Don Lee

My father once told me that American democracy is a people's democracy at heart, and that it therefore can be as great as the American people, or as fallible. It depends on all of us. But our system is more fragile than we know. To sustain it, we must always cherish the ideals on which it was founded, remain vigilant against the dark forces that threaten it, and actively engage in the process of making it work. — George Takei

We, as citizens, are the true owners of government. — Todd Park

The cheeky ideal I am calling for is that Muslims should be viewed as equal citizens, nothing more and nothing less. — Maajid Nawaz

For every citizen that was robbed, I had failed. — Babatunde Fashola

We often see ourselves as small, insignificant citizens, but God sees in us as His messengers — Sunday Adelaja

That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest. — James Madison

The only Jews who interest us are our fellow citizens." "Basically and profoundly, we are with the West. — Habib Bourguiba

we seem to be on a constant quest to keep America a country of citizens who can only talk to one another — Kari Martindale

Well, again, a gun sale database is just trying to get the Department of Justice to keep track of the guns that they're purchasing and supplying to drug dealers and murderers. I mean, wow. Come on, let's get the government under control before we start restricting the rights of - innocent citizens. — John Mica

Voting is the least arduous of a citizen's duties. He has the prior and harder duty of making up his mind. — Ralph Barton Perry

He had not been in El Paso for years, and they had developed it considerably since then, he'd heard, along the lines of sin and salvation. They had churches and a Republican or two and a smart of banks and a symphony orchestra and five railroads and a lumberyard and the makings of a library. So much for sin. On the side of salvation they had ninety-some saloons, just shy of one for every hundred citizens, although municipal goodyism had moved the gambling rooms out back or upstairs. — Glendon Swarthout

Government is at its worst when you have apathy from its citizens. — Jesse Ventura

When Congress exercises the powers delegated to it by the Constitution, it may impose affirmative obligations on executive and judicial officers of state and local governments as well as ordinary citizens. — David Souter

To require a citizen to sign a loyalty oath is to destroy some of the loyalty he could otherwise claim, since any subsequent loyal behavior may then be attributed to the oath. — B.F. Skinner

A free society depends upon a high degree of mutual trust. The public will not give that trust to officials who are not seen to be impartially dedicated to the general public interest, nor will they give trust to those high in government who violate the rule of law they ask citizens to obey at the expense of self-interest, or to those who present government as the place where one feathers his own nest, [or] exchanges favors with friends and former associates. — Archibald Cox

Immigrants can spread diseases for which we may have no immunity. There is also the question of crime and culture. Many immigrants come from countries with different legal structures and are not willing to behave in the way we expect American citizens to behave. — Ron Paul

When we become overly concerned about our appearance, our spiritual reputation, our coolness, and our acceptance, we are living as citizens of this world rather than as ambassadors. — Francis Chan

In the township, as well as everywhere else, the people is the only source of power; but in no stage of government does the body of citizens exercise a more immediate influence. — Alexis De Tocqueville

States have the responsibility to create rules and conditions for growth and development, and to channel the benefits to all citizens by providing education and making people able to participate in the economies, and in decision-making. — Anna Lindh

The key players are now all in place in Washington and in state governments across America to officially label carbon dioxide as a pollutant and enact laws that tax us citizens for our carbon footprints. — John Coleman

In some of our subcultures, paper bags are often used to carry intimate personal belongings. And the sight of some of our less fortunate citizens carrying their belongings in brown paper bags is too familiar to permit such crass biases to diminish protection of privacy. — David L. Bazelon

The Social Security Act offers to all our citizens a workable and working method of meeting urgent present needs and of forestalling future need. It utilizes the familiar machinery of our Federal-State government to promote the common welfare and the economic stability of the Nation. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

I'm conscious of competitive issues, but at the same time the recommendation they make is that we protect citizens by not adding to the overall tax burden of the province. — Christy Clark

By travelling across frontiers, on horseback and in the imagination, Montaigne invited us to to exchange local prejudices and the self division they induced for less constraining identities as citizens of the world. — Alain De Botton

Because of my intense hopes for the youth of China, I feel very keenly my responsibility for their future success or failure. The fate of China lies in their hands. The responsibility for organizing and training them to become worthy citizens of China, able to undertake the tasks of Resistance and Reconstruction, is mine; I cannot evade it. — Chiang Kai-shek

Well, the United States has said that the disarmament of Iraq is the top priority, but we have also noted that there are many other United Nations Security Council Resolutions which are on the books, including the necessity to respect the human rights of all the citizens of Iraq that we're very interested in. — Richard Armitage

Watching our entire country implode under the self-serving ideologies of those so eager to claim everything but the Constitution as their guide leaves at least half of us without a home. We may live on the same land, but our nation and the citizens of that nation have been exiled into a national wilderness. — Larisa Alexandrovna

We supported the cooperative movement among farmers. The movement was still young and stubbornly opposed to the commercial distributors. I believed it to be one of the most helpful undertakings, for according to my social theories any organization run by citizens for their own welfare is preferable to the same action by the government. — Herbert Hoover