Quotes About Citizenship

Living democracy grows like a tree, from the bottom up.

Being a planetary citizen does not need space travel. It means being conscious that we are part of the universe and of the earth. The most fundamental law is to recognise that we share the planet with other beings, and that we have a duty to care for our common home.

In our democratic society, the library stands for hope, for learning, for progress, for literacy, for self-improvement and for civic engagement. The library is a symbol of opportunity, citizenship, equality, freedom of speech and freedom of thought, and hence, is a symbol for democracy itself.

You can sleepwalk through life and ignore the greater problems around you, as you steep in your own petty personal issues and pass your time casually existing. We, on the other hand, have to prove to ourselves, and to others around us, that we will actively make the effort to shape our society and take responsibility for it, always. And only once we do this, are we citizens. In short—everyone has basic rights, but everyone earns their privileges.

People in industrialized nations used to be called "citizens." Now we are "consumers"—which means (according to the dictionary definition of "consume") people who "use up," "waste," "destroy," and "squander.

Americans used to be 'citizens.' Now we are 'consumers.

Democratic citizenship requires knowledge of war—and now, in the age of weapons of mass annihilation, more than ever.

We Russians are slaves because we are unable to free ourselves and become citizens rather than subjects.' Alexander Herzen, (1812–1870)

I don't think it's so important who you vote for - you vote for who you believe in. The important thing is to vote, because it's our way and it's the best way.

Patriotism is best exemplified through auto-critique.

A bikeway is a symbol that shows that a citizen on a $30 bicycle is equally important as a citizen on a $30,000 car.

A protected bicycle lane in the city in a developing country is a powerful symbol, showing that a citizen on the $30 bicycle is as important as one in a $30,000 car

There's no such thing as second class citizenship. That's like telling me you can be a little bit pregnant.

Democracy, it appears, is a bit chancy. But its chances also depend on what we do ourselves

Students should not only be trained to live in a democracy when they grow up; they should have the chance to live in one today.

Christians are good citizens, and take human laws very seriously, for religious reasons, not just for secular reasons. That's why they are better citizens than atheists, and certainly better citizens than moral relativists and subjectivists: they have stronger motives for obedience.

If our best-educated citizens have no idea how to answer these basic questions, we will struggle to build a democracy that can solve the problems we face, whether they are what to do about climate change, the world's poor, the problems of Australia's Indigenous people, or the prospect of a future in which we can genetically modify our offspring. An education in the humanities is as valuable today as it was in Plato's time.

I didn't know you were interested in politics,' I said. 'I'm not,' he said. 'But isn't that how Hitler got elected in the first place: too many people who didn't give a shit who was running the country?

am opposed to negro citizenship in any and every form. [Boo.] I believe this government was made on a white basis. [Boo.] I believe it was made for white men [Boo], for the benefit of white men [Boo], and their posterity for ever. [Boo.] I am in favor of confining citizenship to white men . . . instead of conferring it upon Negroes, Indians, and other inferior races. [Boo. Boo. Boo.]" Something

What is a city? What should it be? Why do we live in groups? What do we want from cities? And who decides?

I]n the abstract, we may envision an Olympian perfection of perfect beings in Washington doing the business of their employers, the people, but any of us who has ever been at a zoning meeting with our property at stake is aware of the urge to cut through all the pernicious bullshit and go straight to firearms.

Standing in a two-hour line makes people worry that they're not living in a democratic nation.

Standing in a two-hour line makes people worry that they're not living in a democratic nation. People stand in line for two houres and they go over the edge.

My understanding was that it completed a person, sanding down the rough provincial edges and transforming you into a citizen of the world.