David O. McKay Quotes

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

Education in the understanding of citizenship is a short-term affair if we are honest and earnest.

But, you know, I'm sorry, I think democracy requires participation. I mean, I don't want to proselytize but I do feel some sort of duty to participate in the process in some way other than just blindly getting behind a political party.

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

I believe that everyone should participate in democracy and enjoy doing it.

And they understand that to be an effective member of a democracy, you have to accept responsibility.

Without an educated populace, democracy cannot sustain itself.

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.

There can be no daily democracy without daily citizenship.

It is an obvious and blatant stupidity beyond my ability to articulate how dumb it is for us not to teach our children how to run the government.

Democracy is something that you must learn each generation. It has to be taught.

Government will not fail to employ education, to strengthen its hands, and perpetuate its institutions.

This dullness of vision regarding the importance of the general welfare to the individual is the measure of the failure of our schools and churches to teach the spiritual significance of genuine democracy.

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

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

I call on people to be 'obsessed citizens,' forever questioning and asking for accountability. That's the only chance we have today of a healthy and happy life.

The values and voices of democracy are silent. Either we have lost touch with those values or, no better, believe they need not or cannot be taught.

The effective functioning of our constitutional democracy depends upon the participation in public life of a citizenry that is well informed

Among the foremost benefits of free government is that education of the intelligence and of the sentiments which is carried down to the very lowest ranks of the people when they are called to take a part in acts which directly affect the great interests of their country.

What is the soul, the informing spirit of our institutions, of our entire system of government but public opinion. Let us direct the force, the vast moral force of this engine, to the aid of others.

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.

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.

History must share with reading, writing and arithmetic first rank as the most important subjects in the curriculum. Understanding the issues on which citizens of a republic are expected to vote is impossible without an understanding of the past.

Essentially, social education is moral education, and moral education is preparation for citizenship... When Jefferson and others advocated public education, it was to prepare for citizenship in a new, constitutional, democratic society.

Democracy depends on well educated and engaged citizens.