Quotations about:
    citizenry


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Our democracy is not the buildings, not the monuments. It’s you being willing to work to make things better and being willing to listen to each other and argue with each other and come together and knock on doors and make phone calls and treat people with respect.

Barack Obama (b. 1961) American politician, US President (2009-2017)
Staff Farewell, Joint Base Andrews, Maryland (20 Jan 2017)
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Added on 5-Jul-22 | Last updated 5-Jul-22
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In the great fulfillment we must have a citizenship less concerned about what the government can do for it and more anxious about what it can do for the nation.

Warren G Harding
Warren G. Harding (1865-1923) American journalist, politician, US President (1921-23)
Speech, Republican National Convention (7 Jun 1916)

See Holmes, Kennedy. Harding was, at that time, a US Senator. The line, in Harding's hand, is on display at his home in Marion, Ohio.
 
Added on 19-Jan-22 | Last updated 19-Jan-22
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The people — the people — are the rightful masters of both Congresses, and courts — not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert it.

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) American lawyer, politician, US President (1861-65)
Speech, Cooper Union, New York City (27 Feb 1860)
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On preventing the spread of slavery to new states and territories. Sometimes paraphrased, "We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the Courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who would pervert the Constitution."
 
Added on 23-Apr-19 | Last updated 23-Apr-19
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Let us not be mistaken: the best government in the world, the best parliament and the best president, cannot achieve much on their own. And it would be wrong to expect a general remedy from them alone. Freedom and democracy include participation and therefore responsibility from us all.

Václav Havel (1936-2011) Czech playwright, essayist, dissident, politician
“New Year’s Address to the Nation” (1 Jan 1990)
 
Added on 29-Aug-16 | Last updated 29-Aug-16
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Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers.

John Adams (1735-1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797-1801)
A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765)
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Paraphrase: "The people have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge -- I mean of the character and conduct of their rulers."
 
Added on 16-Jun-16 | Last updated 16-Jun-16
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The great can protect themselves, but the poor and humble require the arm and shield of the law.

Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) American politician, general, US President (1829-1837)
Letter to John Quincy Adams (26 Aug 1821)
 
Added on 10-Sep-15 | Last updated 10-Sep-15
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A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to James Madison (20 Dec 1787)
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Added on 20-Jan-15 | Last updated 11-Jul-22
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Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to William Stephens Smith (13 Nov 1787)
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Added on 16-May-13 | Last updated 3-Aug-22
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For in a republic, who is “the Country”? Is it the Government which is for the moment in the saddle? Why, the Government is merely a servant — merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them. Who, then, is “the country?” Is it the newspaper? Is it the pulpit? Is it the school-superintendent? Why, these are mere parts of the country, not the whole of it; they have not command, they have only their little share in the command. They are but one in the thousand; it is in the thousand that command is lodged; they must determine what is right and what is wrong; they must decide who is a patriot and who isn’t.

Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Papers of the Adams Family, Part 6 “Two Fragments from a Suppressed Book Called ‘Glances at History’ or ‘Outlines of History'” (1939)
 
Added on 27-Dec-12 | Last updated 26-Jan-19
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In a virtuous community men of sense and principle will always be placed at the head of affairs. In a declining state of public morals men will be so blinded to their true interests as to put the incapable and unworthy at the helm. It is therefore vain to complain of the follies or crimes of a government. We must lay the hands on our own hearts and say, Here is the sin that makes the public sin.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“The Individual and the State,” sermon, Second Church of Boston (1830-04-08)
 
Added on 13-Jul-12 | Last updated 27-Mar-23
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I am not one of those who think that the people are never in the wrong. They have been so, frequently and outrageously, both in other countries and in this. But I do say, that in all disputes between them and their rulers, the presumption is at least upon a par in favour of the people.

Edmund Burke (1729-1797) Anglo-Irish statesman, orator, philosopher
“Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents” (23 Apr 1770)
 
Added on 25-Aug-08 | Last updated 9-Nov-20
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Widespread intellectual and moral docility may be convenient for leaders in the short term, but it is suicidal for nations in the long term. One of the criteria for national leadership should therefore be a talent for understanding, encouraging, and making constructive use of vigorous criticism.

Carl Sagan (1934-1996) American scientist and writer
Billions and Billions ch. 14 “The Common Enemy” (1997)
 
Added on 21-Jul-08 | Last updated 3-Nov-20
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All politics is based on the indifference of the majority.

Reston - All politics is based on the indifference of the majority - wist.info quote

James Reston
James "Scotty" Reston (1909-1995) Scottish-American journalist and editor
“New York: Rockefeller Comes Out of His Trance,” New York Times (12 Jun 1968)
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This is cited in multiple places to this 1968 op-ed, to which I don't have access. Reston also used the phrase in this 1972 op-ed.
 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 30-Dec-21
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