Quotes About Citizenship

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.

How could I remain a spectator while Singapore faces such complex challenges? How could I not step forward when I know I have more to contribute to the country we all worked to build?

If our governments are so compromised that they will not tell us the truth, then we must step forward to grasp it.

I never, ever, had a person who could come up with the name of a person who could not get a job because an illegal immigrant had stepped in front of them, because it was either a job that person didn't want to do or didn't exist.

When I stepped in America outside of the plane, I said, 'I came home.'

Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independant, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bands.

A nation as a society forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society

Responsibility is a tremendous engine in a free government

Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens.

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.

That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.

The Greeks by their laws, and the Romans by the spirit of their people, took care to put into the hands of their rulers no such engine of oppression as a standing army. Their system was to make every man a soldier, and oblige him to repair to the standard of his country whenever that was reared. This made them invincible and the same remedy will make us so.

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then.

In 1787, Benjamin Franklin was supposedly asked what would emerge from the Constitutional Convention being held in Philadelphia. "A republic," Franklin answered, "if you can keep it." Today, the bigger challenge is to find anyone who knows what a republic actually is.

Sources and apps that goad us into emphasizing our aggression, encourage us to aggrandize ourselves at the expense of others, and reward us for displaying our most negative thoughts are destroying our ability to function as citizens, even without the slew of emotional problems created when our minds are spinning in a tornado of random sensory input all day.

A people who mean to be their own Governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. James Madison

Yes, it is unbridled ego for experts to believe they can run a democracy while ignoring its voters; it is also, however, ignorant narcissism for laypeople to believe that they can maintain a large and advanced nation without listening to the voices of those more educated and experienced than themselves.

Those who want to reap the benefits of this great nation must bear the fatigue of supporting it.

Let the names of Whig and Tory be extinct; and let none other be heard among us, than those of a good citizen; an open and resolute friend; and a virtuous supporter of the RIGHTS of MANKIND, and of the FREE AND INDEPENDANT STATES OF AMERICA.

Let the names of Whig and Tory be extinct; and let none other be heard among us, than those of A GOOD CITIZEN, AN OPEN AND RESOLUTE FRIEND, AND A VIRTUOUS SUPPORTER OF THE RIGHTS OF MANKIND AND OF THE FREE AND INDEPENDANT STATES OF AMERICA.

It is impossible to find any equivalent counterpoise for the right of suffrage, because it is alone worthy to be its own basis, and cannot thrive as a graft, or an appendage. -Agrarian Justice

Men make the city, and not walls or ships without men in them.

immigrant to live in the United States for twenty-five years before becoming eligible for citizenship.

We're a nation of immigrants - there's no question about that. But we're also a nation of laws. I think we have to honor both of those.