Algernon Sidney Quotes

To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.

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.

… schools of liberty …. warehouses of disinterested patriotism

Pastors can lead the way in motivating the faithful to wise stewardship of their citizenship responsibilities. Without a healthy culture and civil society, limited government and ordered liberty will be impossible.

A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.

We stand in the shadow of Jefferson who believed that a society founded upon the rule of law and liberty was dependent upon public education and the diffusion of knowledge.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Good government generally begins in the family, and if the moral character of a people once degenerate, their political character must soon follow.

Let us by all wise and constitutional measures promote intelligence among the people as the best means of preserving our liberties.

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!

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.

We have a great nation to help govern. We who are citizens of this great republic are favored children, yet we are all the time complaining; but that is one of the inalienable privileges of an American to complain about his neighbor and government-always crying for a change. But, with all of its faults, this is the best government for man on the face of the earth

The New Englander is attached to his township because it is strong and independent; he has an interest in it because he shares in its management; he loves it because he has no reason to complain of his lot; he invests his ambition and his future in it; in the restricted sphere within his scope, he learns to rule society; he gets to know those formalities without which freedom can advance only through revolutions, and becoming imbued with their spirit, develops a taste for order, understands the harmony of powers, and in the end accumulates clear, practical ideas about the nature of his duties and the extent of his rights.

I rejoice in having so favorable an opportunity of felicitating the State of Rhode Island on the co-operation I am sure to find in the measures adopted by the guardians of literature in this place, for improving the morals of the rising generation, and inculcating upon their minds principles peculiarly calculated for the preservation of our rights and liberties. You may rely on whatever protection I may be able to afford in so important an object as the education of our youth.

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.

A Bible and a newspaper in every house, a good school in every district ... are the principle support of virtue, morality and civil liberty.

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.

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.

We need democracy - but right now democracy needs us! It needs self-assured citizens who have confidence and drive, common sense and decency, and who show solidarity with others.

The Constitution is worth saving, the rule of law is worth saving, democracy is worth saving, but these things can and will be lost if everyone waits around for someone else.

Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics.