Civic Behavior Quotes

Some States just have a good political culture. It’s not all greed driven.

People feel overwhelmed by the news cycle, and by this nagging feeling that the kind of vitriol out of Washington is just not how we are supposed to act as a government, and as a nation.

For as good habits of the people require good laws to support them, so laws, to be observed, need good habits on the part of the people.

As the government is, such will be the man.

In terms of behaving in a civic way, I feel my behavior is always exemplary.

Rome tolerated every abominable practice, embraced every foul idea in the name of freedom and the rights of the common man. Citizens no longer carried on deviant behavior in private, but pridefully displayed it in public. It was those with moral values who could no longer freely walk in a public park without having to witness a revolting display. What happened to the public censors who protected the majority of citizenry from moral decadence? Did freedom have to mean abolishing common decency? Did freedom mean anyone could do anything they wanted anytime they wanted, without consequences?

It is a very easy thing to devise good laws; the difficulty is to make them effective. The great mistake is that of looking upon men as virtuous, or thinking that they can be made so by laws; and consequently the greatest art of a politician is to render vices serviceable to the cause of virtue.

In some ways, political decency is a sign of a healthy democracy, but in other ways, it is the cause of it.

I saw someone peeing in Jermym Street the other day. I thought, is this the end of civilization as we know it? Or is it simply someone peeing in Jermyn Street?