Pope Benedict XVI Quotes

Everyone living under the social contract we call democracy has a duty to act responsibly, to obey the laws, and to abandon certain types of self-interested behaviors that conflict with the general good.

We have the Bill of Rights. What we need is a Bill of Responsibilities.

We call ourselves public servants but I'll tell you this: we as public servants must set an example for the rest of the nation. It is hypocritical for the public official to admonish and exhort the people to uphold the common good.

Politicians have limited power. They can't impose morality on themselves. How can they impose it on the country?

Before you're a writer, you're a citizen, a human being, and therefore the weapons of the citizen are at your disposal to use or not use.

There is such a thing as a national conscience, and it can be touched.

A nation is formed by the willingness of each of us to share in the responsibility for upholding the common good.

Ideally citizens are to think of themselves as if they were legislators and ask themselves what statutes, supported by what reasons satisfying the criterion of reciprocity, they would think is most reasonable to enact.

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 citizen is apolitical; as a citizen, by definition, has to take interest in public affairs.

Politics, according to the Social Doctrine of the Church, is one of the highest forms of charity, because it serves the common good. I cannot wash my hands, eh? We all have to give something!

It is time in the West to defend not so much human rights as human obligations.

Politics isn't just a game of clashing parties and competing interests. The right reason is to challenge the status quo, to serve the common good, and to leave this nation better than we found it.

If we don't bear witness as citizens, as people, as individuals, the right that we have had to life is sacrificed. There is a silence, instead of a speaking presence.

I think it is the responsibility of a citizen of any country to say what he thinks.

It is the duty of government to make it difficult for people to do wrong, easy to do right.

I authored the Universal National Service Act because I believe that everyone in America should contribute to the greater good of America.

My public life is before you; and I know you will believe me when I say, that when I sit down in solitude to the labours of my profession, the only questions I ask myself are, What is right? What is just? What is for the public good?

Thus, neither my government nor myself, personally, are without ideals and responsibilities.

When a citizen gives his suffrage to a man of known immorality he abuses his trust; he sacrifices not only his own interest, but that of his neighbor; he betrays the interest of his country.

Any institution which does not suppose the people good, and the magistrate corruptible is evil.

Republican government loses half its value where the moral and social duties are ... negligently practiced.

When moral principles, rather than persons, are candidates for power, to vote is to perform a moral duty, and not to vote is to neglect a duty

The members of the Church, as members of society, have the same right and duty to promote the common good as do other citizens.

The right to private property is inconceivable without responsibilities to the common good.