Quotes About Citizenship

You are going to need sales taxes, both Federal and State, income tax, and a lot of other kinds. It's a great country but you can't live in it for nothing.

Let America realize that self-scrutiny is not treason, self-examination is not disloyalty.

Patriotism is easy to understand in America. It means looking out for yourself by looking out for your country.

Obviously, what we need are critical lovers of America — patriots who express their faith in their country by working to improve it.

The right to vote has and always will remain the most powerful non-violent tool we have in a democratic society. We must, each and every one of us, continue to protect this sacred right and ensure everyone is afforded the opportunity to vote.

How is it possible that a woman who is unfit to vote should be the mother of, and bring up, a man who is?

Voting is people power.

VOTE, n. The instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.

The United States is the only country with a known birthday. All the rest began, they know not when, and grew into power, they know not how.... There is no "Republican," no "Democrat," on the Fourth of July, — all are Americans.

[I]t behooves us as true Americans to enter the splendid new movement which is endeavoring to make the Fourth over from a day of shallow jingoism and unmeaning brutality and carnage into a day of initiation into the meaning of true citizenship and a festival of deep and genuine and beautiful patriotism.

Earlier today we heard the beginning of the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States, "We, the people." It is a very eloquent beginning. But when that document was completed on the 17th of September in 1787 I was not included in that "We, the people." I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation, and court decision I have finally been included in "We, the people."

BALLOT BOX. The altar of democracy.

The right to vote is the fundamental citizenship right that protects all other rights.

Make no mistake, here in our time, it's more important than ever that we show up to vote, not just this year, but every year and in every election. Every voice must be heard and every vote must be counted.

Vote like you understand that someone died for your right to do so.

And what is a good citizen? Simply one who never says, does or thinks anything that is unusual. Schools are maintained in order to bring this uniformity up to the highest possible point. A school is a hopper into which children are heaved while they are still young and tender; therein they are pressed into certain standard shapes and covered from head to heels with official rubber-stamps.

The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naive and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair.

The only Jews who interest us are our fellow citizens.

I've now been in this country for thirteen years, since I was seventeen. So this is my second home.

For politics is not like the nursery; in politics obedience and support are the same.

Reading the very best writers—let us say Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Tolstoy—is not going to make us better citizens. Art is perfectly useless, according to the sublime Oscar Wilde, who was right about everything. He also told us that all bad poetry is sincere. Had I the power to do so, I would command that these words be engraved above every gate at every university, so that each student might ponder the splendor of the insight.

He is a poor patriot whose patriotism does not enable him to understand how all men everywhere feel about their altars and their hearthstones, their flag and their fatherland.

I support legal immigration.

We announce the birth of a conceptual country, NUTOPIA. Citizenship of the country can be obtained by declaration of your awareness of NUTOPIA. NUTOPIA has no land, no boundaries, no passports, only people. NUTOPIA has no laws other than cosmic. All people of NUTOPIA are ambassadors of the country. As two ambassadors of NUTOPIA, we ask for diplomatic immunity and recognition in the United Nations of our country and our people.