Quotes About Citizenship

The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of continuing to be a nation at all would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities.

There can be no fifty-fifty Americanism in this country. There is room here for only 100 % Americanism, only for those who are Americans and nothing else.

In this country we have no place for hyphenated Americans.

Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official.

A great democracy has got to be progressive or it will soon cease to be great or a democracy.

The government is us; WE are the government, you and I."- Theodore Roosevelt

Each one must do his part if we wish to show that the nation is worthy of its good fortune.

I now believe as sincerely as ever, for all the laws that the wit of man can devise will never make a man a worthy citizen unless he has within himself the right stuff, unless he has self-reliance, energy, courage, the power of insisting on his own rights and the sympathy that makes him regardful of the rights of others.

There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American.  The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.  We are a nation, not a hodge-podge of foreign nationalities.  We are a people, and not a polyglot boarding house.

The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.  We are a nation, not a hodge-podge of foreign nationalities.  We are a people, and not a polyglot boarding house.

However, my first visits to the tenement-house districts in question made me feel that, whatever the theories might be, as a matter of practical common sense I could not conscientiously vote for the continuance of the conditions which I saw. These conditions rendered it impossible for the families of the tenement-house workers to live so that the children might grow up fitted for the exacting duties of American citizenship.

for all the laws that the wit of man can devise will never make a man a worthy citizen unless he has within himself the right stuff, unless he has self-reliance, energy, courage, the power of insisting on his own rights and the sympathy that makes him regardful of the rights of others.

A man's first duty is to his own home, but he is not thereby excused from doing his duty to the State; for if he fails in this second duty it is under the penalty of ceasing to be a freeman.

The first requisite of a good citizen in this republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his weight.

Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country.

generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. [It] says what the states can't do to you. [It] says what the federal government can't do to you, but doesn't say what the federal government or state government must do on your behalf.

Till thirty the Spartans did not suffer a man to marry: but how many men here under thirty; coming to produce not one sufficient citizen, but a nation and a world of such!

No Georgian has the right to evade or neglect his duties and responsibilities.

I am not someone who is different from Colorado. I am part of Colorado. I am like my neighbors and my community.

To this day, I get very nervous coming back into my own country.

We should never take democracy for granted. Democracy can emerge and develop, but it can also decay.

I was born in the U.S., my wife was born in Mexico and emigrated here when she was in college, and my daughters were born in New York City. That makes them passport-carrying, natural-born, eligible-to-run-for-president Americans. But they're also Mexicans and they like that just fine.

No one can fight corruption for Nigerians except Nigerians. Everyone has to be committed from the top to the bottom to fight it.

I sort of consider myself a Nigerian who spends a lot of time in the U.S.