Fellow Citizens Quotes

He who is unfit to serve his fellow citizens wants to rule them.

All of us try to persuade our fellow citizens to see our point of view and that is the way public opinion is created in a democracy. It seems to me, however, we might achieve our aim with a little less violent invective and blackening of the individual character, for on both sides motives are probably good. The real difference is in the methods that are advocate.

Sound principles will not justify our taxing the industry of our fellow citizens to accumulate treasure for wars to happen we know not when, and which might not, perhaps, happen but from the temptations offered by that treasure.

I do care if religious doctrine becomes an excuse to exclude my fellow citizens from the rights and protections our country promises.

Every single American deserves to be treated equally by their fellow Americans and under the law.

With all honesty I declare that it would be a weakness on my part and treason to the people, who have placed their confidence in me, not to put myself at the front of my fellow citizens, who anxiously call me from all parts of the country, to compel General Diaz by force of arms, to respect the national will.

In our present national and international emergency, I consider it of importance that I clarify some general misconceptions concerning my attitude towards my fellow citizens of Jewish faith. I do not subscribe or support, directly or indirectly, any agitation which would promote antagonism against my Jewish fellow-citizens. I consider that the hate-mongering prevalent for some time in this country against the Jew is of a distinct disservice to our country, and to the peace and welfare of humanity…. It is my sincere hope that now in this country and throughout the world, when this war is finished and peace once again established, hatred of the Jew, commonly known as anti-Semitism.. .will cease for all time.

The question before the court and you, gentlemen of the jury, is not of small or private concern. It is not the cause of a poor printer, nor of New York alone, which you are trying. No. It may in its consequences affect every freeman that lives under British government on the main of America. It is the best cause. It is the cause of liberty. And I make no doubt but your upright conduct, this day, will not only entitle you to the love and esteem of your fellow citizens, but every man who prefers freedom to a life of slavery will bless and honor you as men who have baffled the attempt at tyranny and who, by an impartial and uncorrupt verdict, have laid a noble foundation for securing to ourselves and our posterity and our neighbors that to which nature and the laws of our country have given us a right—the liberty both of exposing and opposing arbitrary power by speaking and writing the truth.

Instead of investing our resources in locking people up, let's invest more of those resources in our fellow citizens so they don't end up in the system to begin with. And if they do, they can get back on their feet.

When the Constituent Assembly engaged men of letters to research the penal code in order to repeal the death penalty, even for the condemned, did they imagine that after four years of a revolution enlightened by philosophical ideals, the French would, without cease, kill their fellow citizens?

I anticipate with pleasing expectations that retreat in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a free government, the ever favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.

If you think aficionados of a living Constitution want to bring you flexibility, think again. You think the death penalty is a good idea? Persuade your fellow citizens to adopt it. You want a right to abortion? Persuade your fellow citizens and enact it. That's flexibility.

While it is admitted that each State in which slavery exists has by the Constitution of the United States the exclusive right to legislate in regard to its abolition with in its own boundaries; this Society shall endeavor to convince their fellow citizens that slaveholding is a heinous sin in the sight of God. and that the duty, safety and best interests of all concerned require its immediate abandonment without expatriation.

The just man and firm of purpose—not the heat of fellow citizens clamoring for what is wrong, not presence of threatening tyrant can shake—in his rocklike soul.

Whereas civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.

My fellow citizens, the President is dead, but the Government lives and God Omnipotent reigns.

[There is] a type of which he [Theodore Roosevelt] is perhaps the master specimen—the politician who could not help being one if he tried…. when Mr. Roosevelt takes a step which the mass of his fellow citizens regard as carefully considered for its political effect, the chances are at least even that he is merely obeying a natural impulse, which may make for either strength or weakness.

42% of today’s army enlistees are ethnic or racial minorities. In the general population in the 18 to 24 year old age cohort, nearly 50% of the people…have had some exposure to college education. In that same age cohort in the U.S. military today…the percentage of people who’ve had some kind of exposure to college education is 6.5%. So the vast majority of our society…has, in effect, hired some of the least disadvantaged of their fellow citizens to conduct some of our most dangerous business. I think that is an unstable situation, and one that does threaten, in the long run, the health of our democracy.

Increasingly, we’re seeing people try to define more speech as dangerous because it may lead to political outcomes they see as unacceptable. Some hold the view that since the stakes are so high, they can no longer trust their fellow citizens with the power to communicate and decide what to believe for themselves.

The Congress, the executive branch, and our fellow citizens have done an enormous amount to support our troopers and their loved ones. And all of us are grateful for that.

Any political movement directed against any body of our fellow-citizens because of their religious creed is a grave offense against American principles and American institutions. It is a wicked thing either to support or oppose a man because of the creed he possesses. . . . Such a movement directly contravenes the spirit of the Constitution itself.

We must have the courage to confront dreadful views even in the people we love the most. But that's difficult to do when we cast large segments of our fellow citizens into a basket to be condemned and disparaged, judging them even as we ignore that many of their deplorable traits exist in us, too.

Were we ever to find ourselves living under a totalitarian regime, place no faith in the mercy of your fellow citizens.

That we suffer so much today under whatsoever flag we live is proof positive that constitutions and laws, when framed by the early advocates of human liberty, never included and were never intended for us as a people. It is only a question of sheer accident that we happen to be fellow citizens today with the descendants of those who, through their advocacy, laid the foundation for human rights.

It is repugnant to an American to inform upon his fellow citizens.