Citizens, Citizenship Quotes

I don't believe in democracy… neither did our white forefathers. I believe, as they did, in a republican authoritarian republic with a limited electorate - just like the one the writers of our Constitution meant this country to be. When these white Christian patriots sat down to write the Declaration of Independence, there were no black citizens for them to worry about.

As Director of the FBI, I am sworn to ensure that my special agents have what they need to protect themselves and the citizens of this country, and that they are trained to properly use and properly deploy that equipment in the right times and places.

The young people ... must recognize that they will get from their country tomorrow what they give her today.

Questioning is the great strength of democracy; the ability to doubt without losing face

Neither the rich nor the poor have great interest in government. The rich can afford their own security … in their gated communities and their own information networks. The poor are usually so pushed against the wall that they do not have time for the mechanics of the government. If you lose the middle class, you lose democratic government.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.

Americans are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal immigrants entering this country. The jobs they hold might otherwise be held by our citizens or legal immigrants, and the public services they use impose burdens on our taxpayers. That's why our administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders by hiring a record number of new border guards, by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as ever before, by cracking down on illegal aliens who try to take American jobs, and by barring welfare benefits to illegal aliens.

Government has three primary functions. It should provide for military defense of the nation. It should enforce contracts between individuals. It should protect citizens from crimes against themselves or their property.

We are all citizens of one world, we are all of one blood. To hate a man because he was born in another land, because he speaks a different language, or because he has different views is a great folly. Desist, I implore you, for we are all equally human….Let us have but one end in view – the welfare of humanity.

It is now the moment when by common consent we pause to become conscious of our national life and to rejoice in it, to recall what our country has done for each of us, and to ask ourselves what we can do for our country in return.

There can be no fifty-fifty Americanism in this country. There is room here for only 100% Americanism, only for those who are Americans and nothing else

The whole proletariat must be armed at once with muskets, rifles, cannon and ammunition, and the revival of the old-style citizens militia, directed against the workers, must be opposed.

Citizens are the energy of Seoul.

Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people in order to betray them.

We need a nation of minutemen – citizens who are not only prepared to take up arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as a basic purpose of their daily life, and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom.

I am an atheist, and I believe that religion should not be in the classrooms; it has to be in the churches. In the classrooms, you have to form citizenship, not people with religious beliefs, that corresponds to the private sphere.

We can have no '50-50' allegiance in this country. Either a man is an American and nothing else, or he is not an American at all.

There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism…. The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities.

In a land where so many have a right to air their opinions and where so many interest are bound to collide and have to be reconciled, unanimity can hardly be expected. We were agreed on the evils but differed on the remedies, and amidst this contention of parties, the very zeal and energy of the best citizens became damaging to the public interest.

A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.

There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all.

The Ethiopians … are said to be the tallest and handsomest men in the whole world. In their customs they differ greatly from the rest of mankind, and particularly in the way they choose their kings; for they find out the man who is the tallest of all the citizens, and of strength equal to his height, and appoint him to rule over them.

We do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics is a man who minds his own business; we say that he has no business here at all.

Arabs will participate on an equal footing throughout all sectors of the country’s public life….In every cabinet where the prime minister is a Jew, the vice-premiership shall be offered to an Arab and vice versa.

Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most, that has made it possible for evil to triumph.