Vaclav Havel Quotes

The lack of trust between the federal government and the American citizens of this country is such a wide gap, we have to renew that trust for the people of this country going forward.

Without free, self-respecting, and autonomous citizens there can be no free and independent nations.

Let a durable and firm peace be established and this government be confined rigidly to the few great objects for which it was instituted, leaving the States to contend in generous rivalry to develop, by the arts of peace, their respective resources, and a scene of prosperity and happiness would follow, heretofore unequaled on the globe.

There is no executive order; there is no law that can require the American people to form a national community. This we must do as individuals and if we do it as individuals, there is no President of the United States who can veto that decision.

To have internal peace and stability and economic development, it is important to have good relations with the political parties that we have in our country. That is why we have had engagement with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

Civil religion is the attempt to empower religion, not for the good of religion, but for the creation of the citizen.

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

The Union, which can alone insure internal peace, and external security to each State, Must and Shall be Preserved, cost what it may in time, treasure, and blood.

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

The modern idea of citizenship goes some way to accommodating the tension between solidarity and diversity. Citizenship is not an ethnic, blood-and-soil concept, but a more abstract political idea - implying equal legal, political and social rights (and duties) for people inhabiting a given national space.

Education is teaching of the overall citizenship, to learn to live together with fellow citizens. And, above all, to learn to obey the law.

How to Turn Democrats & Republicans Into Americans

Liberty cannot be guaranteed by law. Nor by any thing else except the resolution of free citizens to defend their liberties.

The fabric of democracy is always fragile everywhere because it depends on the will of citizens to protect it, and when they become scared, when it becomes dangerous for them to defend it, it can go very quickly.

The strongest democracies flourish from frequent and lively debate, but they endure when people of every background and belief find a way to set aside smaller differences in service of a greater purpose.

Our culture is at a critical cusp - a time that requires that we define what it means to be a citizen in a democracy. Within our nation we need to foster a greater sense of collective responsibility.

Let no one ever think for a moment that national debate means national division.

To educate the masses politically is to make the totality of the nation a reality to each citizen. It is to make the history of the nation part of the personal experience of each of its citizens.

Lokmanya Tilak said "Swaraj is my birthright" but now the people of India must say, "Surajya is my birthright".

The life of a republic lies certainly in the energy, virtue, and intelligence of its citizens.

I'm going to fight to bring us all together as Americans.

A thoughtless citizen of a democracy is a delinquent citizen of a democracy.

Since a democratic society repudiates the principle of external authority, it must find a substitute in voluntary disposition and interest; these can be created only by education.

We hear every damn day about how fragile our country is - on the brink of catastrophe - torn by polarizing hate, and how it's a shame that we can't work together to get things done, but the truth is we do. We work together to get things done every damn day!

I would say democracy once meant an organizational society and a state, in which the individual citizen is - feels - responsible, and acts responsibly, and participates in decision-making.