Quotes About Citizens

Large numbers of newcomers can also weaken support for generous welfare benefits on the part of native-born citizens, a factor in both the European and the American immigration debates.

Societies seek to enforce basic social rules universally, but a rule of law that protects citizens against arbitrary actions of the state itself is often initially applied only to a minority of privileged subjects. The law, in other words, protects the interests of the elites who are close to the state or who control the state, and in that sense law resembles what Socrates in Plato's Republic labels the "justice of a band of robbers.

The resulting Rechtsstaat has been described as a liberal autocracy. It provided strong protections of the rights of its citizens in an impersonal manner, even though these citizens did not have the political right to hold their rulers accountable through elections.

For Hegel , by contrast, liberal society is a reciprocal and equal agreement among citizens to mutually recognize each other

Bajo estos preceptos, la prospectiva nos ha enseñado que los países que tienen un gobierno con visión de futuro —y al cual apoyan sus ciudadanos— son los que triunfan.

Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.

There should be no bitterness or hate where the sole thought is the welfare of the United States of America. No man can occupy the office of President without realizing that he is President of all the people.

I venture the challenging statement that if American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land.

It's a basic, intuitive right, worthy of enshrinement: Citizens, not the corporations that stealthily track them, should own their own data.

A government or a party gets the people it deserves and sooner or later a people gets the government it deserves.

No leader, no matter how valuable he may be, can substitute himself for the popular will; and the national government, before concerning itself about international prestige, ought first to give back their dignity to all citizens, fill their minds and feast their eyes with human things, and create a prospect that is human because human consciousness and sovereign men dwell therein.

in a democracy, ordinary citizens should be wary of political leaders who provide simplistic answers to complex social, political, and economic problems.

An educated people can be easily governed.

The death penalty costs too much. Allowing our government to kill citizens compromises the deepest moral values upon which this country was conceived: the inviolable dignity of human persons. (p. 197)

The city had the air and movement of hysteria, and the citizens were crying, in every accent of anger and alarm, that the new forces must at any cost be brought under control. Prosperity never before imagined, power never yet wielded by man, speed never reached by anything but a meteor, had made the world irritable, nervous, querulous, unreasonable and afraid.

Le meilleur gouvernement est celui qui ne gouverne pas du tout; et quand les hommes y seront prêts, tel sera le genres de gouvernement qu'ils auront. Un gouvernement, au mieux, n'est qu'un expédient ; mais la plupart d'entre eux sont d'habitude, et tous les gouvernements sont quelquefois nuisibles.

La meta de un buen gobierno es darle más valor a la vida; la de un mal gobierno, restarle valor.

En général, les hommes, sous un gouvernement comme le nôtre, croient de leur devoir d'attendre que la majorité se soit rendue à leurs raisons. Ils croient que s'ils résistaient, le remède serait pire que le mal ; mais si le remède se révèle pire que le mal, c'est bien la faute du gouvernement. C'est lui le responsable.

La legge non renderà mai gli uomini liberi; sono gli uomini a dover mantenere libera la legge.

Some are petitioning the State to dissolve the Union, to disregard the requisitions of the President. Why do they not dissolve it themselves—the union between themselves and the State—and refuse to pay their quota into its treasury? Do not they stand in same relation to the State that the State does to the Union? And have not the same reasons prevented the State from resisting the Union which have prevented them from resisting the State?

El Estado jamás presta o da algo a los ciudadanos que previamente no haya obtenido de ellos mismos.

It is our destiny to live with the wrong as well as the right kind of citizens, and to learn from them, the wrong-minded ones, as much or more as from others. If we have not yet succeeded -after how many centuries?- in eliminating from life the elements which plague us perhaps we need to question life more closely. Perhaps our refusal to face reality is the only ill we suffer from, and all the rest but illusion and delusion. (p.26)

They died comfortably in their little bed of understanding, to become useful citizens of the world. I pitied them, and in short order I deserted them one by one, without the slightest regret.

That's not how national security works... I don't care what the Supreme Court said 30 years ago or what some judge said 15 minutes ago. This is America, and our government is collecting way too damn much data on we the private citizens!