Quotes About Citizens

Ignorance is an evil weed, which dictators may cultivate among their dupes, but which no democracy can afford among its citizens.

Every one of the many wars the United States has engaged in since the end of World War II has been presented to the American people, explicitly or implicitly, as a war of necessity, not a war of choice; a war urgently needed to protect American citizens, American allies, vital American 'interests,' freedom and/or democracy, or kill dangerous anti-American terrorists and various other bad guys.

Notwithstanding our boastful assertions to the world, for nearly a century, that our government was based on the consent of the people, it rests upon force, as much as any government that ever existed. - Robert E. Lee

Scoundrels will be corrupt and unconcerned citizens apathetic under even the best constitution.

Politicians need citizens who will permit them to behave reasonably.

If US per capita income continues to grow at a rate of 1.5 percent a year, the country will have plenty of money to finance comfortable retirements and high-quality healthcare for all citizens, including those at the bottom of the wage ladder.

By its nature, government was either small and personal, something on the level of a town hall meeting, or it was tyranny, with the few ruling the many for their own benefit, no matter how representational that government might be in theory.

The virtue of its Citizens is the only Support of a Republican government

I am not in favor of having government do anything that private citizens can do as good or better

The bureaucrat has become a self-styled sacred person; and the common man is blocked from finding out what the bureaucrats are doing, let alone controlling them.

The Imperial German Government will not expect the Government of the United States to omit any word or any act necessary to the performance of its sacred duty of maintaining the rights of the United States and its citizens and of safeguarding their free exercise and enjoyment.

No government can long endure unless its citizens are willing to make some sacrifice for its existence.

Vox populi," Belle says. "The voice of the people.

Doesn't matter who's in the White House, the truth about our government, any government for that matter, is that protecting its citizens is never its first priority. Its first priority is protecting itself.

the truth about our government, any government for that matter, is that protecting its citizens is never its first priority. Its first priority is protecting itself.

Where there is little or no public opinion, there is likely to be bad government, which sooner or later becomes autocratic government.

Half a century ago, the amazing courage of Rosa Parks, the visionary leadership of Martin Luther King, and the inspirational actions of the civil rights movement led politicians to write equality into the law and make real the promise of America for all her citizens.

A city is simply a passel of people packed in a pot like pickles.

While democracy has advanced, the part we ordinary citizens have played in the making and sustaining of the places and communities we live in has diminished. Never has so much been decided for so many by so few.

C]ameras, in the right hands-or at least in more and more hands of average citizens-may help create a culture in which the previously powerless have the welcome recourse of evidence against the culpable.

Because even after fifty-six years of independent sovereignty, still the earth trembles beneath Israel's feet. Israel has not yet managed to establish among its citizens the sense that this place is their home. They may feel that Israel is their fortress, but still not truly their home.

The management of the New York fiscal crisis pioneered the way for neoliberal practices both domestically under Reagan and internationally through the IMF in the 1980s. It established the principle that in the event of a conflict between the integrity of financial institutions and bondholders' returns, on the one hand, and the well-being of the citizens on the other, the former was to be privileged.

If "persons and property, are held by no better tenure than the caprice of a mob," "if the laws be continually despised and disregarded," Lincoln warned, citizens' affection for their government must inevitably be alienated.

When the government is able to collect tax and seize private property without just compensation, it is an indication that the public is ripe for surrender and is consenting to enslavement and legal encroachment. A good and easily quantified indicator of harvest time is the number of public citizens who pay income tax despite an obvious lack of reciprocal or honest service from the government.