Quotes & Sayings About Good Citizenship

You can't write novels without a touch of paranoia. I'm paranoid as an act of good citizenship, concerned about what the powerful people are up to. — Kurt Vonnegut

I'd rather see the United States as a beacon of good work and good citizenship, rather than as #1 on some international educational measurement. — Howard Gardner

In the future, we will play games while floating naked in a tank of warm, sensory-depriving gelatin. Games will be distributed chemically, into the gelatin, and absorbed into the player's skin. The gelatin will be Lingonberry-flavored, and the games will encourage good citizenship. — Tim Schafer

In the long run, success or failure will be
conditioned upon the way in which the average man, the average women, does his or her duty, first in the ordinary, every-day affairs of life, and next in those great occasional cries which call for heroic virtues. The average citizen must be a good citizen if our republics are to succeed. The stream will not permanently rise higher than the main source; and the main source of national power and national greatness is found in the average citizenship of the nation. — Theodore Roosevelt

Students need to be educated on how to be good citizens of their country and what their rights and responsibilities are as members of society. The same issues need to be addressed with regard to the emerging digital society, so that students can learn how to be responsible and productive members of that society. — Mike Ribble

A good place to start is with the kids ... One of the great founding principles of our country was that children would not be punished for the mistakes of their parents. It is time to provide an opportunity for legal residence and citizenship for those who were brought to this country as children and who know no other home. — Eric Cantor

Good citizenship and defending democracy means living up to the ideals and values that make this country great. — Ronald Reagan

Hillary Clinton made a campaign stop in Las Vegas yesterday. She said she wants citizenship for undocumented immigrants. But after seeing Americans celebrate Cinco de Mayo yesterday, immigrants said, 'You know what, we're good. We're gonna head back now. We had enough.' — Jimmy Fallon

It is true that legality is not morality, and sticking to the law is necessary for good citizenship, but it is not sufficient. — Julian Baggini

I want good people to come here from all over the world, but I want them to do so legally. We can expedite the process, we can reward achievement and excellemce, but we have to respect the legal process. And those people who take advantage of the system and come here illegally should never enjoy the benefits of being a resident
or citizen
of this nation. So I am against any path to citizenship for undocumented workers or anyone else who is in this country illegaly. They should
and need to
go home and get in line. — Donald J. Trump

Today, a similar debate rages in black communities about the underlying causes of mass incarceration. While some argue that it is attributable primarily to racial bias and discrimination, others maintain that it is due to poor education, unraveling morals, and a lack of thrift and perseverance among the urban poor. Just as former slaves were viewed (even among some African Americans) as unworthy of full citizenship due to their lack of education and good morals, today similar arguments can be heard from black people across the political spectrum who believe that reform efforts should be focused on moral uplift and education for ghetto dwellers, rather than challenging the system of mass incarceration itself. — Michelle Alexander

Religion creates community, community creates altruism and altruism turns us away from self and towards the common good ... There is something about the tenor of relationships within a religious community that makes it the best tutorial in citizenship and good neighborliness. — Jonathan Sacks

Napoleon is great because he rose superior to the Revolution, suppressed its abuses, preserved all that was good in it - equality of citizenship and freedom of speech and of the press - and only for that reason did he obtain power. — Leo Tolstoy

Our immigration system is a broken system that needs to be fixed. We need reform that provides hardworking people of good character with a real path towards citizenship. — Joe Baca

The likelihood that Jews would be sent to their deaths depended upon the durability of institutions of state sovereignty and the continuity of prewar citizenship. These structures created the matrix within which individual choices were made, the constraints upon those who did evil, and the possibilities for those who wished to do good. — Timothy Snyder

It may sound reactionary, I know. But we can all feel it. We've changed the way we think of ourselves as citizens. We don't think of ourselves as citizens in the old sense of being small parts of something larger and infinitely more important to which we have serious responsibilities. We do still think of ourselves as citizens in the sense of being beneficiaries
we're actually conscious of our rights as American citizens and the nation's responsibilities to us and ensuring we get our share of the American pie. We think of ourselves now as eaters of the pie instead of makers of the pie. So who makes the pie?
...
Something has happened where we've decided on a personal level that it's all right to abdicate our individual responsibility to the common good and let government worry about the common good while we all go about our individual self-interested business and struggle to gratify our various appetites. — David Foster Wallace

I do not favor or support, nor will I vote for, a pathway to citizenship for people that are here who've broken the law. I would support - after we have developed a secure border - a mechanism for allowing those folks to work here in America ... Everything that we should do should be based on good, sound policy and what's right for America. — Matt Salmon

How we, too, are still pious. - In science, convictions have no right of citizenship, so it is said and with good reason: only when they decide to descend to the modesty of a hypothesis, a provisional experimental standpoint, a regulative fiction, may they be granted admission and even a certain value in the realm of knowledge - though always with the restriction of remaining under police surveillance, under police suspicion. But, — Friedrich Nietzsche

At the 1894 ALA conference it was fairly well agreed that the primary goal of the public library must be to teach good citizenship. Libraries recognized that such "Americanization" could be achieved through literacy. Thus, teaching immigrants to read was not just a benefit in and of itself; literacy would also serve the interests of democracy. — Kevin Mattson

Good government is no substitute for self-government. — Mahatma Gandhi

If there is no discipline, there is anarchy. Good citizenship demands attention to responsibilities as well as rights. — Joe Clark

He talked about democracy and good citizenship and about a good world where everyone did the best he could for the common good of all. — Betty Smith

Applied good taste is a mark of good citizenship. Ugliness is a from of anarchy.. ugly cities, ugly advertising, ugly lives produce bad citizens. — Lester Beall

Certainly I'm participating in an already established and awesome tradition, but it's a tradition that sort of shoots up and through the mainstream in short bursts and pulses and then gets diluted. Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson shot up and then got sucked back down underground under more entertaining and less radical versions of body and self - poetry and prose that posited bodies in more perfect union with good citizenship. — Lidia Yuknavitch

Each person possesses and inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override. For this reason, justice denies that the loss of freedom for some is made right by a greater good shared by others. It does not allow that the sacrifices imposed on a few are outweighed by the larger sum of advantages enjoyed by many. Therefore in a just society the liberties of equal citizenship are taken as settled; the rights secured by justice are not subject to political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests. The only thing that permits us to acquiesce in an erroneous theory is the lack of a better one; analogously, an injustice is tolerable only when it is necessary to avoid an even greater injustice. Being first virtues of human activities, truth and justice are uncompromising. — John Rawls

Civic virtue is not best justified in terms of fair play in a cooperative enterprise for mutual advantage, because citizenship is not a strictly reciprocal relationship in which people receive benefits in proportion to their contributions, but a joint relationship that realises the common good of freedom and self-government. — Iseult Honohan

The European Parliament responded by focusing on corporate governance. If corporations wanted to be legal citizens they could damned well shoulder the responsibilities of good citizenship as well as the benefits. Social as well as financial audits were the order of the day. Directives outlining standards for corporate citizenship were drafted and a lucrative niche for a new generation of management consultants emerged - those who could look at an organization and sound a warning if its structure rewarded pathological behaviour. — Charles Stross

The real breeders of discontent and alien doctrines of government and philosophies subversive of good citizenship are such as these who take the law into their own hands. — John L. Lewis

Citizenship comes first today in our crowded world ...
No man can enjoy the privileges of education and thereafter
with a clear conscience break his contract with society.
To respect that contract is to be mature, to strengthen it is to be a good citizen,
to do more than your share under it is noble. — Isaiah Bowman

The German stamp on Wisconsin endures in the state's commitment to efficient agriculture, hard work, education, culture, and to good citizenship and political freedom - all of which were an integral part of the German immigrant's language. — Richard H. Zeitlin

The essence of its failure was that it could not sustain unity. In its early stages its citizens, both patrician and plebeian, had a certain tradition of justice and good faith, and of the loyalty of all citizens to the law, and of the goodness of the law for all citizens; it clung to this idea of the importance of the law and of law-abidingness nearly into the first century B.C. But the unforeseen invention and development of money, the temptations and disruptions of imperial expansion, the entanglement of electoral methods, weakened and swamped this tradition by presenting old issues in new disguises under which the judgment did not recognize them, and by enabling men to be loyal to the professions of citizenship and disloyal to its spirit. — H.G.Wells

The objectives of education and industry are identical. Both are interested in good citizenship, in serving society, in a better life-and both firmly believe in freedom. — Herman Lee Donovan

As becomes more obvious every day, good citizenship is highly unpopular. — Kurt Vonnegut

The Society or Fraternity of Freemasons is more in the nature of a system of Philosophy or of moral and social virtues taught by symbols, allegories, and lectures based upon fundamental truths, the observance of which tends to promote stability of character, conservatism, morality and good citizenship. — William Howard Taft

There is no patent recipe for getting good citizenship. You get it by applying the old, old rules of decent conduct, the rules in accordance with which decent men have had to shape their lives from the beginning .. fundamental precepts, put forth in the Bible and embodied consciously or unconsciously in the code of morals of every great and successful nation from antiquity to modern times. — Theodore Roosevelt

I will be the first. As of tonight, I renounce my citizenship in the United Nations, and my allegiance to the Shelter state. From now on I will be a citizen--a citizen of no country but that bounded by the limits of my own mind. I do not know what those limits are, and I may never find out, but I shall devote my life to searching for them, in whatever manner seems good to me, and in no other manner whatsoever.
You must do the same. Tear up your registration cards. If you are asked your serial number, tell them you never had one. Never fill in another form. Stay above ground when the siren sounds. Stake out plots; grow crops; abandon the corridors. Do not commit any violence; simply refuse to obey. Nobody has the. right to compel you, as non-citizens. Passivity is the key. Renounce, resist, deny! — James Blish

Washington, D.C. is what is broken, not the immigration policies. We have good laws. We have people suffer every day because of government's failure to enforce the law and be respectful to the process we have. We have a pathway to citizenship already in place. — Russell Pearce

The child cannot too early learn to be a good citizen? I think this is questionable: citizenship is an adult affair. Let school and home teach the child to respect the laws and institutions of his country. For the time being that should suffice. To use the juvenile novel or biography to turn the child into an internationalist or an advocate of racial tolerance may be high-minded, but I would suggest that the child first be allowed to turn into a boy or girl. Pious Little Rollo is dead; the Good Little Citizen is replacing him. The moralistic literature of the last century tried to produce small paragons of virtue. How about our urge to manufacture small paragons of social consciousness? — Clifton Fadiman

Illness is the night side of life, a more onerous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place. — Susan Sontag

As long as we are on this earth, we possess dual citizenship. On one hand we owe allegiance to our nation and are called to be good citizens. But we are also citizens of the kingdom of God. Our supreme loyalty is to Him. — Billy Graham

Behold the complacent salesman retailing the Good and True.
One can even buy a so-called Religion, which is really but common
morality sanctified with flowers and music. Rob the Church of her
accessories and what remains behind? Yet the trusts thrive marvelously,
for the prices are absurdly cheap,
a prayer for a ticket to heaven,
a diploma for an honorable citizenship.Hide yourself under a bushel
quickly, for if your real usefulness were known to the world you would
soon be knocked down to the highest bidder by the public auctioneer. — Okakura Kakuzo

I appreciate the good work that senators in both parties have put into trying to fix our broken immigration system. There are some good elements in this proposal, especially increasing the resources and manpower to secure our border and also improving and streamlining legal immigration. However, I have deep concerns with the proposed path to citizenship. To allow those who came here illegally to be placed on such a path is both inconsistent with rule of law and profoundly unfair to the millions of legal immigrants who waited years, if not decades, to come to America legally. — Ted Cruz

I have long had a tendency to tie marksmanship to morality. The essence of good marksmanship is self-control, and self-control is the essence of good citizenship. It is too easy to say that a good shot is automatically a good man, but it would be equally incorrect to ignore the connection. — Jeff Cooper

The establishment of the National Park Service is justified by considerations of good administration, of the value of natural beauty as a National asset, and of the effectiveness of outdoor life and recreation in the production of good citizenship. — Theodore Roosevelt

Evolution, energy, and ethics are the core elements that will guide us along the challenging path toward the Life Era: the first - evolution - because a good understanding of our universal roots and of our place in the cosmic scheme of things will help us create a feasible future course; the second - energy - because our fate will bear strongly on the ways that humankind learns to use energy efficiently and safely; and the third - ethics - because global citizenship and a planetary society are crucial factors in the survival of our species. — Eric Chaisson

The gospel of grace nullifies our adulation of televangelists, charismatic superstars, and local church heroes. It obliterates the two-class citizenship theory operative in many American churches. For grace proclaims the awesome truth that all is gift. All that is good is ours, not by right, but by the sheer bounty of a gracious God. — Brennan Manning

To blend, without coercion, the individual good and the common good is the essence of citizenship in a free country. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

I consider writing an act of good citizenship. — Kurt Vonnegut

Leaving America means renouncing your citizenship, moving out of the country and leaving family and friends behind. You can retain your citizenship if you like, but you'll still be away from loved ones and still be paying taxes. You lose all the good stuff about America and have to keep all the bad stuff. — Michael Arrington

When I first ran for public office, it was with the passion and idealism of a young man who believed that government could help make our lives better, that public service was a calling and that citizenship demanded responsibilities. There was a greater good. — James McGreevey

There are so many intellectual and moral angels battling for rationalism, good citizenship, and pure spirituality; so many and such eminent ones, so very vocal and authoritative! The poor devil in man needs all the support and advocacy he can get. The artist is his natural champion. When an artist deserts to the side of the angels, it is the most odious of treasons. — Aldous Huxley

We must also recognize that people who have diametrically opposing views may believe *they too* are advancing the kingdom, which is all well and good so long as we don't christen our views as *the* Christian view. As people whose citizenship is in heaven before it is in any nation (Phil 3:20), and whose kingdom identity is rooted in Jesus rather than in a political agenda, we must never forget that the only way we individually and collectively represent the kingdom of God is through loving, Christlike, sacrificial acts of service to others. Anything and everything else, however good and noble, lies outside the kingdom of God. — Gregory A. Boyd

Finally, cooking is good citizenship. It's the only way to get serious about putting locally raised foods into your diet, which keeps farmlands healthy and grocery money in the neighborhood. — Barbara Kingsolver

I'm not a Communist. I'm an American. I'm a capitalist. I mean, I'm not a very good capitalist, myself. I'm not very good at it, but it's not that I'm not for capitalism. But people who believe in things like corporate citizenship, it's idiotic. I mean, it shows you're an idiot. — Fran Lebowitz

One of the arguments that authoritarian governments use to ward off the call for greater political freedom is to argue that American-style democracy is no guarantee of good policy ... Over the years, I've grown used to these arguments, and my response has rarely wavered: Sure, we might make dumb choices sometimes, but we will defend, to the end, the right to make choices at all, because we believe that our collective conscience, freely expressed, will eventually lead us in the right direction. When it comes to guns, it is getting harder to muster that argument abroad. Every new shooting, every new failure of will and citizenship, slashes another hole in our credibility as a way of life. — Evan Osnos

Balancing the common good with the freedom and liberty to exercise that individuality has been and remains a challenge for those committed to democracy while understanding that the polis ensures our participation and therefore our citizenship. — David Blunkett

Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust. Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override. For this reason justice denies that the loss of freedom for some is made right by a greater good shared by others. It does not allow that the sacrifices imposed on a few are outweighed by the larger sum of advantages enjoyed by many. Therefore in a just society the liberties of equal citizenship are taken as settled; the rights secured by justice are not subject to political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests. — John Rawls

For the grand and inescapable tradition of western literary classics confronts us with fundamental choices over our understanding of words, reading and art, as well as citizenship, civilization, faith, and the whole notion of the true, the good, and the faithful. — Os Guinness

Advocacy groups and voters are not wrong to push candidates to declare their position clearly on policy issues. That is good citizenship. Hard questions should be asked of every candidate, every politician. And those public servants should be prepared to answer, but in their own words. — Mark McKinnon

You go on, I presume, with your latin Exercises: and I wish to hear of your beginning upon Sallust who is one of the most polished and perfect of the Roman Historians, every Period of whom, and I had almost said every Syllable and every Letter is worth Studying.
In Company with Sallust, Cicero, Tacitus and Livy, you will learn Wisdom and Virtue. You will see them represented, with all the Charms which Language and Imagination can exhibit, and Vice and Folly painted in all their Deformity and Horror.
You will ever remember that all the End of study is to make you a good Man and a useful Citizen. - This will ever be the Sum total of the Advice of your affectionate Father,
John Adams — John Adams

People crave trustworthy information about the world we live in. Some people want it because it is essential to the way they make a living. Some want it because they regard being well-informed as a condition of good citizenship. Some want it because they want something to exchange over dinner tables and water coolers. — Bill Keller

The test of good citizenship is loyalty to country. — Bainbridge Colby