Roger Ebert Quotes

I had become increasingly concerned in recent years about the lack of civics education in our nation's schools. In recent years, the schools have stopped teaching it. And it's unfortunate.

Even civics classes have almost disappeared from the schools. So things have not gotten any better.

When you Google me, you'll find a lot of people don't like Richard Dreyfuss. Because I'm cocky and I present a cocky attitude. But no one has ever disagreed with the notion I represent, that we need more civic education. So far there's 100 percent support for that.

I grew up in San Francisco. And so I'm informed in a certain kind of way about, you know, believing in democracy and believing in America. And I'm a very ardent patriot.

Voting is a civic sacrament - the highest responsibility we have as Americans.

The role we can play every day, if we try, is to take the whole experience of every day and shape it to involve American man. It is our job to interest him in his community and to give his ideas the excitement they should have.

To place and power all public spirit tends, In place and power all public spirit ends; Like hardy plants, that love the air and sky, When out, 'twill thrive—but taken in, 'twill die!

Let's summon the courage to insist on a minimal level of civic knowledge for the citizens empowered to decide our fate.

This City is what it is because our citizens are what they are.

We are not merely historians but also and always citizens.

Civic education and civic responsibility should be taught in elementary school.

Half the states have stopped making civics and government a requirement for high school. Half.

On the diffusion of education among the people rest the preservation and perpetuation of our free institutions.

How shall those who practice election frauds recover that respect for the sanctity of the ballot which is the first condition and obligation of good citizenship? The man who has come to regard the ballot box as a juggler's hat has renounced his allegiance.

It is absolutely the case that much needs to be done to invigorate and elevate the quality of civic learning in America

A popular society must provide a school for citizens where through the best, most accessible and direct means they may be educated in the pure doctrine of Patriotism.

The health of our republic depends on shared principles like the First Amendment, but it is also built on the Teddy Roosevelt-like vigor of its citizens and local self-reliance.

Voting is how we participate in a civic society - be it for president, be it for a municipal election. It's the way we teach our children - in school elections - how to be citizens, and the importance of their voice.

It is the State which educates its citizens in civic virtue, gives them a consciousness of their mission and welds them into unity.

Please, please, stop referring to yourselves as 'consumers.' OK? Consumers are different than citizens. Consumers do not have obligations, responsibilities and duties to their fellow human beings.

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

If they had taught a class on how to be the kind of citizen Dick Cheney worries about, I would have finished high school.

It seems to me that we're in danger of losing sight of certain basic civic values in society by allowing the growth of a whole generation of people who really have no sense of attachment to society.

A constitutional democracy is in serious trouble if its citizenry does not have a certain degree of education and civic virtue.

If parents instill a sense of civic-mindedness - and there is no better way to do that than by example - their children will probably follow.