Citizen Obligations Quotes

Good laws, if they are not obeyed, do not constitute good government.

Nothing is more certain than the indispensable necessity of government; and it is equally undeniable that whenever and however it is instituted, the people must cede to it some of their natural rights, in order to vest it with requisite powers.

In monarchy the crime of treason may admit of being pardoned or lightly punished but the man who dares rebel against the laws of a republic ought to suffer death.

Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by example. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.

Nobody has a more sacred obligation to obey the law than those who make the law.

The submission of free people to the executive authority of government, is no more than a compliance with laws which they themselves have enacted.

A government must govern, must prescribe and enforce laws within its sphere or cease to be a government. Moreover, the individual must be independent and free within his own sphere or cease to be an individual. The fundamental question ... is now, and always will be through what adjustments, by what actions, these principles may be applied.

It is the obligation of every government to yield protection to their citizens as the consideration for their obedience

… the magistrate should know what law he is to administer, that the subject should know under what law he is to live.

Government exists to protect us from each other. Government does not exist to protect us from ourselves.

Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or ill it teaches the whole people by its example.

The idea of the state is, or should be, a very limited, prescribed idea. The state looks after the defense of the realm, and other matters - raising revenue to pay for things which are for all of us, and so on. That idea has turned turtle now. The state isn't any longer perceived as an institution which exists to serve us.

Public officers are the servants and agents of the people, to execute the laws which the people have made.

Wherever magistrates were appointed from among those who complied with the injunctions of the laws, Socrates considered the government to be an aristocracy.

In the Islamist Palestinian state, every citizen will be required to act in accordance with the codes of Islamic religious law.

I have no problem paying taxes. It doesn't bother me, because I want to live in a society that's happy.

Circumstances may require a dissolution of contracts founded on the most binding and sacred obligations…which dissolution ought not to be dependent on private will, but should require legislative interference; inasmuch as the republic is deeply interested in the private business of its citizens.

If children do not understand the Constitution, they cannot understand how our government functions, or what their rights and responsibilities are as citizens of the United States.

All of us should have free choice when it comes to patriotic displays... a government wisely acting within its bounds will earn loyalty and respect from its citizens. A government dare not demand the same.

We always hear about the rights of democracy, but the major responsibility of it is participation.

Conservatives need to know how important it is to fill out the census. It is one of the only things our Constitution specifically asks of U.S. citizens and boycotting will just help liberals expand government even further.

The Census Bureau can ask citizens very invasive questions, and if they don't respond, the government shows up at their door and threatens them with a fine.

Protests are fine. But in South Carolina we believe in the rule of law, and the people of this state should never doubt that as governor, I will enforce it.

Governments rather depend upon men, than men upon governments.

The reason the government sells the census as your ticket to getting goodies - rather than as your civic duty - is that distributing goodies is now all the government does.