David Blunkett Quotes

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education.

Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage.

Join America taught English, an understanding of the U.S. Constitution, that the Bill of Rights is the ultimate insurance policy for a citizen, and that being a citizen is not an entitlement. And we also taught a bit of capitalism.

Democracy is not something you believe in or a place to hang your hat, but it's something you do. You participate. If you stop doing it, democracy crumbles.

Self government is the hardest thing that people can do other than fighting a civil war.

It is in keeping with their dignity as persons that human being should take an active part in government.

When people fought for a democratic life, they were insisting that the common man had the capacity to engage in deliberation about how the community ought to run its life, not that you could let him squeak for what he wanted. And that ideal was that you could educate the common man to develop a certain amount of wisdom and that he could marshal the objectivity to deliberate and decide about what the public would require without always thinking that the political action was an opportunity to further his private interests…

The only way we can keep our freedom is to work at it. Not some of us. All of us. Not some of the time, but all of the time. So if you value your citizenship and you want to keep it for yourself and your children and their children, give it your faith, your belief, and give it your active support in civic affairs.

We are not the consumers of democracy, we are its proprietors.

Democracy destroys itself because it abuses its right to freedom and equality. Because it teaches its citizens to consider audacity as a right, lawlessness as a freedom, abrasive speech as equality, and anarchy as progress.

People have choices. They are going to vote with their feet.

Good citizenship and defending democracy means living up to the ideals and values that make this country great.

In Spain, we should have enough intelligence, enough sense of individual and collective responsibility to do for ourselves that which would be imposed upon us by a dictatorship.

Democracy is not just voting for your leaders; it's really premised upon ordinary citizens understanding the issues.

Liberty is the most precious gift we offer our citizens.

Democracy doesn't require a whole lot of work of its citizens, but it requires some: It requires taking a good look outside once in a while, and considering the bad news and what it might mean, and making the occasional tough choice, and soberly taking stock of what your real interests are.

At its most basic the democratic contract is a simple one: the right to vote comes with a responsibility to society, through tax payments and citizenship.

No man is good enough to govern another man without the other's consent.

You can't be a full participant in our democracy if you don't know our history.

We always hear about the rights of democracy, but the major responsibility of it is participation.

I contend that the strongest of all governments is that which is most free.

What are the American ideals? They are the development of the individual for his own and the common good; the development of the individual through liberty; and the attainment of the common good through democracy and social justice.

The balance of private good and general welfare is at the bottom of civilized morals; but the morals of the Heroic Age are founded on individuality, and on nothing else.

No power on earth is greater than a mind and soul reawakened. Our Constitution begins 'we the people', not 'us the government'.

I feel it's a person's duty to participate in the governing of the country in which he lives.