Selected citizenship quotes

1. Bernard Shaw remains the only model we have of what the citizen of a democracy should be: an informed participant in all things we deem important to the society and the individual.

2. While the people retain their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government in the short space of four years.

3. I am by heritage a Jew, by citizenship a Swiss, and by makeup a human being, and only a human being, without any special attachment to any state or national entity whatsoever.

4. The good citizen need not of necessity possess the virtue which makes a good man.

5. Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how the world works.

6. My government currently runs things only because the people 'allow' them to run things. It is my responsibility that I do everything I can to keep tabs on my government, keep them honest and make sure that they always act for the good of the people. They must be reminded that they hold no power over the people that the people do not wish for them to hold. If the government begins working in a way that the people don't agree with, they must be made to know that we will rip it to its very foundations and replace it with something that does.

7. There ought to be system of manners in every nation which a well-formed mind would be disposed to relish. To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.

8. The nation guarantees the nurture, education, and comfortable maintenance of every citizen from the cradle to the grave.

9. This is, I say, the time for all good men not to go to the aid of their party, but to come to the aid of their country.

10. While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian.

11. A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.

12. The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.

13. When we assumed the Soldier, we did not lay aside the Citizen.

14. The people of a nation are enslaved when, together, they are helpless to institute effective change, when the people serve the government more than the government serves them.

15. People tend to forget their duties but remember their rights.

16. The American people are sheep. They're comfortable, rich, working. It's like the Romans, they're happy with bread and their spectator sports. The Super Bowl means more to them than any right.

17. You grow up Latin in this country and you're a third class citizen from the word go, and so you have to deal with everything around you from that point of view and trying to feel entitled.

18. Posterity: you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it.

19. Elites quite naturally define as the most important and admired qualities for a citizen those on which they themselves have concentrated.

20. Curses on the law! Most of my fellow citizens are the sorry consequences of uncommitted abortions.

21. I think we can be reasonably confident that if the American population had the slightest idea of what is being done in their name, they would be utterly appalled.

22. On becoming soldiers we have not ceased to be citizens.

23. There can be no daily democracy without daily citizenship.

24. The first requisite of a good citizen in this Republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his weight; that he shall not be a mere passenger, but shall do his share in the work that each generation of us finds ready to hand; and, furthermore, that in doing his work he shall show, not only the capacity for sturdy self-help, but also self-respecting regard for the rights of others.

25. Obedience of the law is demanded; not asked as a favor.

26. The government is us; we are the government, you and I.

27. I agree with you that it is the duty of every good citizen to use all the opportunities, which occur to him, for preserving documents relating to the history of our country.

28. It is the duty of every citizen according to his best capacities to give validity to his convictions in political affairs.

29. If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins to them.

30. America has never been united by blood or birth or soil. We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our interests and teach us what it means to be citizens.

31. Before man made us citizens, great Nature made us men.

32. We are the raison d'etre of the entire system. We are also the employers of those in public office and in the public service. Why should we accept from them a discourse which suggests contempt for us and for the democratic system?

33. Any one may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which will best pay the Treasury; there is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes.

34. I choose to live in what I think is the greatest country in the world, which is committing horrendous terrorist acts and should stop.

35. Although I held public office for a total of sixteen years, I also thought of myself as a citizen-politician, not a career one. Every now and then when I was in government, I would remind my associates that 'When we start thinking of government as 'us' instead of 'them,' we've been here too long.' By that I mean that elected officeholders need to retain a certain skepticism about the perfectibility of government.

36. He who is void of virtuous Attachments in private Life, is, or very soon will be void of all Regard for his Country. There is seldom an Instance of a Man guilty of betraying his Country, who had not before lost the Feeling of moral Obligations in his private Connections.

37. Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.

38. I will be a model prisoner, as I have been a model citizen.

39. Will people ever be wise enough to refuse to follow bad leaders or to take away the freedom of other people? (16 October 1939)

40. The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish Government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established Government.

41. First pledge our Queen this solemn night, Then drink to England, every guest; That man's the best Cosmopolite Who loves his native country best.

42. They [the American authorities] can't actually believe that anyone would want to not be an American,' he says. 'It's not enough to send them a letter and tell them you've become British; you've got to go to the embassy to formally renounce your US citizenship. I'm a little worried that when I do this they'll pack me off to Guantanamo.

43. What is the defining difference between passive and active citizens? Curiously, it isn't income, geography, or even education. It depends on whether or not they read for pleasure and participate in the arts. These cultural activities seem to awaken a heightened sense of individual awareness and social responsibility.

44. If what philosophers say of the kinship of God and Men be true, what remains for men to do but as Socrates did:-never, when asked one's country, to answer, 'I am an Athenian or a Corinthian,' but 'I am a citizen of the world.' (15)

45. Our natural dispositions may be good; but we have been badly brought up, and are full of anti-social personal ambitions and prejudices and snobberies. Had we not better teach our children to be better citizens than ourselves? We are not doing that at present. The Russians ARE. That is my last word. Think over it.

46. The average Russian of mature age today may some day have the moral satisfaction of seeing his government exercise a power unprecedented in history over the land masses of Asia and Europe. But it is not likely that he will ever know the comforts, in the line of housing, clothing, and other conveniences of civilized living, comparable to those that have existed in the advanced countries of the West. That renunciation of comfort is his involuntary contribution to something: either to the future comfort of his own children or to the increased military power of Russia. He hopes - and we hope with him - that it will not be only the latter.

47. And so, in my State of the- my State of the Union- or state- my speech to the nation, whatever you want to call it, speech to the nation- I asked Americans to give 4,000 years- 4,000 hours over the next- the rest of your life- of service to America. That's what I asked- 4,000 hours.

48. No, I don't know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under God.

49. If this nation expects to be ignorant and free it expects what never was and what will never be.

50. The great citizen, the first-born son of the New World.

51. The United States stands tall, representing a parade of nations, 300 million strong. That number will grow during today's citizenship ceremony, featuring the national anthem performed by pop star Gloria Estefan. She captures the essence of what makes this country so great: Ms. Estefan arrived from Cuba as a 2-year-old and would eventually chase her amitions of becoming a singer. She would incorporate salsa into mainstream American music, reflecting the true meaning of this country as a melting pot.

52. It is the flag just as much of the man who was naturalized yesterday as of the man whose people have been here many generations.

53. The utter collapse of this Profoundly criminal Bush conspiracy will come none too soon for people like me... The massive plundering of the U.S. Treasury and all its resources has been almost on a scale that is criminally insane, and has literally destroyed the lives of millions of American people and American families. Exactly. You and me, sport - we are the ones who are going to suffer, and suffer massively. This is going to be just like the Book of Revelation said it was going to be - the end of the world as we knew it.

54. Let a state be considered as subordinate to the people: But let everything else be subordinate to the state.

55. If you are a Christian, no earthly city is yours. Of our City 'the Builder and Maker is God.' Though we may gain possession of the whole world, we are withal but strangers and sojourners in it all. We are enrolled in heaven: our citizenship is there! Let us not, after the manner of little children, despise things that are great, and admire those which are little! Not our city's greatness, but virtue of soul is our ornament and defence. If you suppose dignity to belong to a city, think how many persons must partake in this dignity, who are whoremongers, effeminate, depraved and full of ten thousand evil things, and at last despise such honour! But that City above is not of this kind; for it is impossible that he can be a partaker of it, who has not exhibited every virtue.

56. Societies grow into systems. The systems require management and are therefore increasingly wielded, like a tool or a weapon, by those who have power. The rest of the population is still needed to do specific things. But the citizens are not needed to contribute to the form or direction of the society. The more 'advanced' the civilization, the more irrelevant the citizen becomes.

57. Indeed you can usually tell when the concepts of democracy and citizenship are weakening. There is an increase in the role of charity and in the worship of volunteerism. These represent the elite citizen's imitation of noblesse oblige; that is, of pretending to be aristocrats or oligarchs, as opposed to being citizens.

58. The state-initiated referendum has always been a part of this [anti-democratic] logic. Stop the talk, we're going to decide, yes or no. At this point the citizen's role is to wave one flag or the other and cheer for one side of the simple question or the other. In other words, we're reduced to children.

59. It is the army that finally makes a citizen of you; without it you still have a chance, however slim, to remain a human being.

60. I believe that you can say to Abraham Lincoln, the blessed, 'Jesus of Nazareth touched your lips when you spoke, and guided your hand when you wrote; and I shall uphold all that you have said and all that you have written.' I believe that you can say to Emerson and Whitman and James, 'In my veins runs the blood of the poets and wise men of old, and it is my desire to come to you and receive, but I shall not come with empty hands.' I believe that even as your fathers came to this land to produce riches, you were born here to produce riches by intelligence, by labor. I believe that it is in you to be good citizens.

61. 'We have to recognise our cultural differences, but accept that they enrich our society. We also have to accept that all communities and citizens have contributed to the nation. We must understand that our homeland can only reach its full promise if we all continue to contribute, with fair and equitable benefits for all. Finally, we must recognize that for the accomplishment of full nationhood and unity, we have to give greater emphasis to our common interests.'

62. 'We, the people of the United States.' Which 'We, the people'? The women were not included.

63. These facts are all on the credit side of the proposition that the Jew is a good and orderly citizen. Summed up, they certify that he is quiet, peaceable, industrious, unaddicted to high crimes and brutal dispositions; that his family life is commendable; that he is not a burden upon public charities; that he is not a beggar; that in benevolence he is above the reach of competition. These are the very quint-essentials of good citizenship.

64. Citizenship? We have none! In place of it we teach patriotism which Samuel Johnson said a hundred and forty or a hundred and fifty years ago was the last refuge of the scoundrel -- and I believe that he was right. I remember when I was a boy and I heard repeated time and time again the phrase, 'My country, right or wrong, my country!' How absolutely absurd is such an idea. How absolutely absurd to teach this idea to the youth of the country.

65. It is the fundamental duty of the citizen to resist and to restrain the violence of the state. Those who choose to disregard this responsibility can justly be accused of complicity in war crimes, which is itself designated as 'a crime under international law' in the principles of the Charter of Nuremberg.

66. How did we ever get to be an empire? The writings of Noam Chomsky -- America's most useful citizen, in my opinion -- are the best answer to that question. --Boston Globe, April 25, 2004 [190]

67. The fight for ideals can no longer take the form of fight between nations, because the lines of division on moral questions are within the nations themselves and intersect the political frontiers. There is no modern State which is completely Catholic or Protestant, or liberal or autocratic, or aristocratic or democratic, or socialist or individualist; the moral and spiritual struggles of the modern world go on between citizens of the same State in unconscious intellectual cooperation with corresponding groups in other states, not between the public powers of rival States.

68. When citizens testify before grand juries they are required to tell the truth. Without the truth, our criminal justice system cannot serve our nation or its citizens.

69. Did the protection we received annul our rights as men, and lay us under an obligation of being miserable? Who among you, my countrymen, that is a father, would claim authority to make your child a slave because you had nourished him in infancy? 'Tis a strange species of generosity which requires a return infinitely more valuable than anything it could have bestowed; that demands as a reward for a defense of our property a surrender of those inestimable privileges, to the arbitrary will of vindictive tyrants, which alone give value to that very property.

70. This is a book about a lie and the liars who told it to the American people. It is also about citizenship and the responsibility of all Americans to hold themselves to the highest standards of citizenship, including holding accountable those we elect to represent us in higher office. It is about truth, justice and the rule of law and the danger imposed on us all by those who lie, pervert justice, and absolve themselves from the rule of law.

71. 'Our founding fathers wrote a constitution for a dream. We have given passports to their ideals.' [11]

72. 'India imposes no procrustean exactions on its citizens: you can be many things and one thing.' [15]

73. I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world. (Note: This seems to Contradict much of what is said by Socrates in Crito.)

74. Responsibility does not only lie with the leaders of our countries or with those who have been appointed or elected to do a particular job. It lies with each one of us individually.

75. In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.

76. The American backwoodsman -- clad in his hunting shirt, the product of his domestic industry, and fighting for the country he loves, he is more than a match for the vile but splendid mercenary of a European despot.

77. In this, our land, we are called upon to give but little in return for the advantages which we receive. Shall we give that little grudgingly? Our definition of patriotism is often too narrow. Shall the lover of his country measure his loyalty only by his service as a soldier? No! Patriotism calls for the faithful and conscientious performance of all of the duties of citizenship, in small matters as well as great, at home as well as upon the tented field.

78. I knew he wasn't an American.

79. The several points of the Dred Scott decision, in connection with Senator Douglas's 'care-not' policy, constitute the piece of machinery, in its present state of advancement. This was the third point gained. The working points of that machinery are: - First, that no negro slave, imported as such from Africa, and no descendant of such slave, can ever be a citizen of any State, in the sense of that term as used in the Constitution of the United States. This point is made in order to deprive the negro, in every possible event, of the benefit of that provision of the United States Constitution, which declares that: 'The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.' Second, that 'subject to the Constitution of the United States, ' neither Congress nor a Territorial legislature can exclude slavery from any United States Territory. This point is made in order that individual men may fill up the Territories with slaves, without danger of losing them as property, and thus to enhance the chances of permanency to the institution through all the future.

80. I'm singing the hardest song [the national anthem] you could possibly sing at this hour of the morning [8 a.m.]. [I came from Cuba] when I was sixteen months old, although I didn't become a citizen until I was actually about 9 or 10 years old [1966-67]. I had to leave the country to become a citizen, because we had to go to Canada -- and I'll never forget that trip as long as I live. But it was very important for me then, and for them [new citizens] today, What more special day can you have: July 4th in the American Mecca. It doesn't get better than that for them. Well, I'll tell you this -- and I can base it on my own feelings. The beauty of this country is that you can become a citizen of this wonderful nation, and still keep who you are: your culture, your lifestyle. It's a melting pot that allows you not to melt if you don't want to. And it's a wonderful place. I love this country. I really admire it: its ideals, the freedom, the things it stands for. As an immigrant that came from a country that doesn't have those freedoms and still doesn't have them -- which is Cuba -- it's much more special to me: To be able to live here and to be able to have the life that I do in this country.

81. [Q: do you believe that a nation should suffer a detrimental cost in order to compensate for wrongs committed by the governors of that nations, or by segments of that nation in the past?] Suppose you're living under a dictatorship, and the dictators carry out some horrendous acts. So you're living in Stalinist Russia, let's say, and Stalin carries out horrible crimes. Are the people of Russia responsible for those crimes? Well, to only a very limited extent, because living under a brutal, harsh, terrorist regime, there isn't very much they can do about it. There's something they can do, and to the extent that you can do something, you're responsible for what happens. Suppose you're living in a free, democratic society, with lots of privilege, enormous, incomparable freedoms, and the government carries out violent, brutal acts. Are you responsible for it? Yeah, a lot more responsible, because there's a lot that you can do about it. If you share responsibility in criminal acts, you are liable for the consequences.

82. First there are the Jews who, dwelling in every country throughout the world, identify themselves with that country, enter into its national life and, while adhering faithfully to their own religion, regard themselves as citizens in the fullest sense of the State which has received them. Such a Jew living in England would say, 'I am an English man practising the Jewish faith.' This is a worthy conception, and useful in the highest degree. We in Great Britain well know that during the great struggle the influence of what may be called the 'National Jews' in many lands was cast preponderatingly on the side of the Allies; and in our own Army Jewish soldiers have played a most distinguished part, some rising to the command of armies, others winning the Victoria Cross for valour. (A note: This article appears frequently on internet hate-sites. It must be kept in mind that some believe that the purpose and context of Churchill's article were quite different from that implied by some of those who are today openly hostile to the Jewish people. The 1920 article was intended by Churchill, and seen at the time by his many Jewish friends, as an antidote to the blood libel anti-Semitic tract, 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,' then enjoying wide circulation in Europe and the United States, in large part financed by the American automobile mogul, Henry Ford.)

83. These facts are all on the credit side of the proposition that the Jew is a good and orderly citizen. Summed up, they certify that he is quiet, peaceable, industrious, unaddicted to high crimes and brutal dispositions; that his family life is commendable; that he is not a burden upon public charities; that he is not a beggar; that in benevolence he is above the reach of competition. These are the very quint-essentials of good citizenship.

84. Bernard Shaw remains the only model we have of what the citizen of a democracy should be: an informed participant in all things we deem important to the society and the individual.

85. It was by the sober sense of our citizens that we were safely and steadily conducted from monarchy to republicanism, and it is by the same agency alone we can be kept from falling back.

86. No, I don't know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under God.

87. Since the days of Greece and Rome when the word 'citizen' was a title of honor, we have often seen more emphasis put on the rights of citizenship than on its responsibilities. And today, as never before in the free world, responsibility is the greatest right of citizenship and service is the greatest of freedom's privileges.

88. As citizens of this democracy, you are the rulers and the ruled, the law-givers and the law-abiding, the beginning and the end. Democracy is a high privilege, but it is also a heavy responsibility whose shadow stalks, although you may never walk in the sun.

89. The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.

90. Truth be told, having two passports in Japan is not necessarily a problem. If one lived a quiet life, one could conceivably keep renewing a non-Japanese passport ad infinitum. The USG permits dual citizenship and doesn't go out of its way to tell other governments about the nationalities of their citizens. However, as you know, I don't live a quiet life.

91. [To] me naturalization is just an obvious extension of what somebody in my position would desire anyway - the right to vote and to legally participate in society the same as any other citizen. I am already as entrenched as any other citizen: I have a house and land with a debt of a quarter-million dollars; with a thirty-year loan I really cannot leave Japan: Moreover, naturalization has knock-on benefits that suit a person with my personality. It will enable me to stand on my rights (yes, more than I do now!) with renewed vigor - because I will indeed have more rights, as well as a firmer ground to demand even more (I can except myself from, say, this 'as a foreigner, you are a guest in our country so shut up' bullshit). And - dare I say it? - I would be able to participate in politics as a candidate if I so choose).

92. I always wanted a beautiful loving wife and she always wanted to be a citizen.

93. I have no country to fight for; my country is the earth; I am a citizen of the world.

94. Amid the din of party strife the people's choice was made, but its attendant circumstances have demonstrated anew the strength and safety of a government by the people. In each succeeding year it more clearly appears that our democratic principle needs no apology, and that in its fearless and faithful application is to be found the surest guaranty of good government. But the best results in the operation of a government wherein every citizen has a share largely depend upon a proper limitation of purely partisan zeal and effort and a correct appreciation of the time when the heat of the partisan should be merged in the patriotism of the citizen.

95. The laws and the entire scheme of our civil rule, from the town meeting to the State capitals and the national capital, is yours. Your every voter, as surely as your Chief Magistrate, under the same high sanction, though in a different sphere, exercises a public trust. Nor is this all. Every citizen owes to the country a vigilant watch and close scrutiny of its public servants and a fair and reasonable estimate of their fidelity and usefulness. Thus is the people's will impressed upon the whole framework of our civil polity - municipal, State, and Federal; and this is the price of our liberty and the inspiration of our faith in the Republic.

96. The lessons of paternalism ought to be unlearned and the better lesson taught that while the people should patriotically and cheerfully support their government, its functions do not include the support of the people.

97. A government for the people must depend for its success on the intelligence, the morality, the justice, and the interest of the people themselves.

98. How does it become a man to behave toward this American government today? I answered that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.

99. It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising their sovereignty. Usurpation is then an easy attainment, and an usurper soon found. The people themselves become the willing instruments of their own debasement and ruin.

100. We are free, but not to be evil, not to be indifferent to human suffering, not to profit from the people, from the work created and sustained through their spirit of political association, while refusing to contribute to the political state that we profit from. We must say no once more. Man is not free to watch impassively the enslavement and dishonor of men, nor their struggles for liberty and honor.