Quotessence
Home / Topics / Citizens Quotes

Citizens Quotes

Browse 3821 quotes about Citizens.

Related topics

GovernmentPeopleStatesCountryIfsWorldThinkingShouldLawNationsRightsMenAmerican CitizensFellowsDemocracyNeedsUnitedLibertyWantWayAmericaPoliticalKnowsUnited StatesBelieveMayDutyHas BeensResponsibilityWellsConstitutionGivingIndividualMeanFirstsWarChildrenGood CitizenCommunityDoeClassHumansYearsImportantPersonsCitizenshipInterestLongFeelsHouseCitiesPresidentVoteTryingJusticeSocialUseHelpingTaxesProtectPoliticsMatterSecurityBornOrderEqualFactsCommonMadeValuesActionCareOrdinaryPolicyTwoWholeIdeasKindMindOpportunitySelfTodayCrimeDemocraticPropertyHomeTogetherAbleDecisionForceJobsMembersReligiousEnoughOrdinary CitizensOur CountryPoliticianSubjectsSupportAbidingmore

Citizens Quotes

“Violence is sometimes a very practical solution but I don't think it is the ultimate solution. Owning a gun is not OK for me. But I could argue both sides. Why shouldn't people own them? I'm not fundamentally against citizens having access to a weapon but I think it has complications. It's probably not the wisest idea. Obviously, it has consequences. Personally, I do not own a weapon.”

PeopleThinkingIdeasSometimesSidesViolenceCitizensWeaponsSolutionsGunConsequenceUltimateAccessArguingPracticalsBoth SidesWisestComplication
Author:Keanu Reeves
Create image

“The members of a body-politic call it "the state" when it is passive, "the sovereign" when it is active, and a "power" when they compare it with others of its kind. Collectively they use the title "people," and they refer to one another individually as "citizens" when speaking of their participation in the authority of the sovereign, and as "subjects" when speaking of their subordination to the laws of the state.”

PeopleKindStatesUseBodyLawSubjectsCitizensMembersAuthorityActiveTitlesComparePassiveSovereignParticipationSubordination
Author:Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Create image

“It used to be said in antislavery days that a people who would tacitly consent to the enslavement of 4,000,000 human beings were incapable of being just to each other, and I believe this same rule holds with regard to the injustice practiced by men towards women. So long as all men conspire to rob women of the citizen's right to perfect equality in all the privileges and immunities of our so-called "free" government, we can not expect these same men to be capable of perfect justice to each other.”

PeopleMenBelieveHumansLongSaidGovernmentUsedI BelieveJusticeHuman BeingsPerfectCitizensCapableRegardInjusticePrivilegeEqualityUsed To BeIncapableCan NotConsentEnslavementImmunityFree Government
Author:Susan B. Anthony
Create image

“The mere fact of leaving ultimate social control in the hands of the people has not guaranteed that men will be able to conduct their lives as free men. Those societies where men know they are free are often democracies, but sometimes they have strong chiefs and kings.they have, however, one common characteristic: they are all alike in making certain freedoms common to all citizens, and inalienable.”

PeopleKnowsMenSometimesFactsHandsAbleCertainStrongSocialFreedomCommonDemocracyKingsCitizensUltimateMereLeavingChiefsCharacteristicsMonarchyFree ManSocial Control
Book:An Anthropologist at Work
Create image

“Plato--who may have understood better what forms the mind of man than do some of our contemporaries who want their children exposed only to "real" people and everyday events--knew what intellectual experience made for true humanity. He suggested that the future citizens of his ideal republic begin their literary education with the telling of myths, rather than with mere facts or so-called rational teachings.”

PeopleMenWantMindMayChildrenMadeRealFactsFormHumanityEducationTeachingEventsCitizensIntellectualUnderstoodIdealsMereEverydayMythRationalRepublicExposedPlato
Book:The uses of enchantment: the meaning and importance of fairy tales
Create image

“One of the things that I realized when I left office was that in the 1990's citizens across the world applied more power than they had ever had, as compared with the government, because of more people living under democracies than dictatorships for the first time, the power of the internet, which the young Chinese used to basically change China's policy on the SARS epidemic, and shut it down, and because of the rise in non-governmental organizations like my foundation.”

PeopleWorldFirstsGovernmentYoungUsedLeftDemocracyPolicyInternetCitizensOfficeFirst TimeOrganizationDown AndFoundationChinaI RealizedChineseDictatorshipEpidemicsSars
Author:William J. Clinton
Create image

“No President should fear public scrutiny of his program. For from that scrutiny comes understanding; and from that understanding comes support or opposition and both are necessary. I am not asking your newspapers to support the Administration, but I am asking your help in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people. For I have complete confidence in the response and dedication of our citizens whenever they are fully informed.”

PeopleShouldHelpingUnderstandingPresidentSupportCitizensProgramTasksAskingResponseNewspapersAdministrationOppositionDedicationScrutinySecret SocietyInforming
Author:John F. Kennedy
Create image

“I believe that people have a right to decide their own destinies; people own themselves. I also believe that, in a democracy, government exists because (and only so long as) individual citizens give it a temporary license to exist, in exchange for a promise that it will behave itself. In a democracy, you own the government. It doesn't own you.”

PeopleGivingBelieveLongGovernmentIndividualI BelieveDestinyDemocracyCitizensPromiseBehaveTemporaryLicense
Author:Frank Zappa
Create image

“Republics demanded virtue. Monarchies could rely on coercion and "dazzling splendor" to suppress self-interest or factions; republics relied on the goodness of the people to put aside private interest for public good. The imperatives of virtue attached all sorts of desiderata to the republican citizen: simplicity, frugality, sobriety, simple manners, Christian benevolence, duty to the polity. Republics called on other virtues--spiritedness, courage--to protect the polity from external threats. Tyrants kept standing armies; republics relied on free yeomen, defending their own land.”

PeopleSelfChristianInterestSimpleVirtueDemocracyLandDutyCitizensRepublicanProtectGoodnessStandingArmyThreatSimplicityMannersRelyRepublicTyrantsImperativesSelf InterestMonarchyCoercionBenevolenceSplendorSobrietyFactionsDazzlingFrugalityPublic GoodYeoman
Author:James Monroe
Create image

“Reports to the Surgeon General represent the final word upon the efficient and devoted sense of responsibility of our people in this obligation to our fellow citizens. Overwhelmingly they confirm the fact that the general mortality rate, infant mortality rate, epidemics, the disease rate - are less than in normal times. There is but one explanation. That is, that through an aroused sense of public responsibility, those in destitution and their children are receiving actually more adequate care than even in normal times.”

PeopleChildrenFactsCareResponsibilityCitizensDiseaseNormalFellowsFinalsRateObligationExplanationReportsMortalityEfficientReceivingDevotedInfantAdequateSurgeonsEpidemicsSense Of ResponsibilityFinal WordsInfant Mortality
Author:Herbert Hoover
Create image

“The measure of a society is found in how they treat their weakest and most helpless citizens. As Americans, we are blessed with circumstances that protect our human rights and our religious freedom, but for many people around the world, deprivation and persecution have become a way of life.”

PeopleWorldWayLifeHumansFoundReligiousFreedomRightsCitizensCircumstancesProtectTreatsBlessedHuman RightsAround The WorldHelplessPersecutionReligious FreedomDeprivation
Author:Jimmy Carter
Create image

“Government is best which is closest to the people. Yet that belief is betrayed by those State and local officials who engage in denying the right of citizens to vote. Their actions serve only to assure that their State governments and local governments shall be remote from the people, least representative of the people's will and least responsive to the people's wishes.”

PeopleStatesGovernmentActionBeliefWishCitizensVoteLocalsOfficialsRepresentativesClosestBetrayedState GovernmentLocal Government
Author:Lyndon B. Johnson
Create image

“Numbered among our population are some 12,000,000 colored people. Under our Constitution their rights are just as sacred as those of any other citizen. It is both a public and a private duty to protect those rights. The Congress ought to exercise all its powers of prevention and punishment against the hideous crime of lynching, of which the negroes are by no means the sole sufferers, but for which they furnish a majority of the victims.”

PeopleMeanRightsCrimeDutyOughtCitizensExerciseProtectConstitutionVictimSacredMajorityCongressPopulationPunishmentSoleHideousPreventionSufferersLynching
Author:Calvin Coolidge
Create image

“I cannot change you. I cannot change other people. So I have decided to put all of my energy where I have the most leverage , where I know I can make a difference. Instead of being upset that this world is not populated the way I want it to be populated, I have decided to become the citizen that I want the world to be populated with. That's how I create the vision.”

PeopleKnowsWorldWayWantI CanEnergyDifferencesVisionThis WorldCitizensDecidedUpsetMaking A Difference
Author:Gary Zukav
Create image

“There are a lot of very fine upstanding gays who are good citizens and all that. I am not making a decision for individual people. But when it comes to a societal policy, I think there are not enough babies for adoption to go around. I think a preference should be given to families with a mother and father who have a lifetime commitment.”

PeopleThinkingShouldEnoughMotherFatherIndividualGivenDecisionPolicyBabyFineCitizensGayCommitmentLifetimeAdoptionPreferenceMother And FatherGood CitizenLifetime Commitment
Author:Phyllis Schlafly
Create image

“Killing a bunch of people in Sudan and Yemen and Pakistan, it's like, "Who cares - we don't know them." But the current discussion is framed as "When can the President kill an American citizen?" Now in my mind, killing a non-American citizen without due process is just as criminal as killing an American citizen without due process - but whatever gets us to the table to discuss this thing, we're going to take it.”

PeopleKnowsMindCareProcessPresidentCitizensTablesKillingCurrentsDuesCriminalsBunchDiscussionWho CaresPakistanAmerican CitizensFramedSudanDue ProcessYemen
Author:Teju Cole
Create image

“When social movements engage in legal reform, they often mobilize images of people from their constituent population who most match national norms about what "deserving citizens" are like, and use those people as spokespeople and as lead plaintiffs in legal cases. This strategy requires that people who are experiencing intersectional harm - who are vulnerable through multiple vectors of demonization and marginalization - be further marginalized and disappeared by the advocacy.”

PeopleUseSocialCasesMovementCitizensStrategyPopulationHarmVulnerableReformMultipleNormDeservingConstituentsAdvocacyMarginalizedSocial MovementsMarginalizationVectorsSpokespeople
Author:Dean Spade
Create image

“Legal reform organizations are usually trying to portray their constituents as "hard workers," as "not criminals," as citizens, as part of normative family arrangements, and as conforming to white norms as much as possible. When these strategies are used, the most dangerous conditions and the people who are most vulnerable cannot be discussed or addressed.”

PeopleTryingHardUsedWhiteConditionsDangerousHard WorkCitizensOrganizationStrategyWorkersCriminalsVulnerableReformArrangementsConformNormConstituentsHard Worker
Author:Dean Spade
Create image

“Intellectual traditions emerging from populations that have always been the constitutive other in the development of the properly free citizen - indigenous people, populations labeled physically or mentally unfit, black people, migrants, women, prisoners - have always produced robust critiques of the what Dylan Rodriguez calls "white bourgeois freedom."”

PeopleBlackWhiteDevelopmentCitizensIntellectualTraditionPopulationPrisonerBlack PeopleDylanIndigenousEmergingCritiqueBourgeoisRobustMigrantsIndigenous People
Author:Dean Spade
Create image

“Being forcefully rattled out of our consumer mentality - our addiction to comfort and convenience can create an opportunity for us [people] to reconnect with what we really value and with the qualities of life that really can sustain us - which include reconnecting with our roles as citizens, community members, and human beings.”

PeopleHumansValuesOpportunityCommunityHuman BeingsQualityRolesCitizensComfortMembersAddictionConsumersMentalityConvenienceQuality Of LifeReconnecting
Author:Tim DeChristopher
Create image

“The 16th Amendment corroded the American concept of natural rights; ultimately reduced the American citizen to a status of subject, so much so that he is not aware of it; enhanced Executive power to the point of reducing Congress to innocuity; and enabled the central government to bribe the states, once independent units, into subservience. No kingship in the history of the world ever exercised more power than our Presidency, or had more of the people's wealth at its disposal.”

PeopleWorldStatesGovernmentPoliticalPoliticsNaturalWealthRightsSubjectsCitizensConceptsIndependentCongressExecutivesAmendmentsUnitsPresidencyWorld HistoryReducingAmerican CitizensBribeNatural RightsExecutive PowerCentral GovernmentSubservienceKingship
Book:Income Tax: Root of All Evil
Create image

“What does it mean when Republicans and Democrats alike warn us about the 'pain' involved in cutting government spending - in their spending less of our money? For the average citizen, what pain is there in his keeping more of his money to invest it the way he wants? Taxes cost people. Tax cuts do not cost government.”

PeopleWayWantMeanDoeGovernmentPainPoliticalPoliticsCuttingCitizensInvolvedRepublicanCostTaxesDemocratAverageSpendingTax CutsGovernment SpendingSpending Less
Author:Theodore J. Forstmann
Create image

“Naturally, grown-up citizens are concerned about the beatniks and delinquents. ... The question is why the grownups do not, more soberly, draw the same conclusions as the youth. Or, since no doubt many people are quite clear about the connection that the structure of society that has becoming increasingly dominant in our country is disastrous to the growth of excellence and manliness, why don't more people speak up and say so?”

PeopleCountrySpeakGrowthClearDoubtYouthBecomingCitizensDrawsConcernedConnectionsStructureExcellenceConclusionOur CountryNo DoubtDominantGrownupsManlinessDelinquentsBeatnik
Author:Paul Goodman
Create image

“I was a working class Jewish girl. In my girlhood, anti-Semitism was a daily fact of life in Detroit. I did not come from people who had many options in their lives or many choices open to them. I was a girl in a family in which women were, as in society at large, very much second-class citizens. I did not see why I should accept these forced limitations without a fight. Being free to make my own choices thus became very important to me at an early age.”

PeopleShouldImportantFactsAgeChoicesGirlFightingMy OwnAcceptingClassCitizensLimitationWorking ClassDetroitFacts Of LifeAnti SemitismBeing FreeMy GirlGirlhoodSecond Class Citizens
Author:Marge Piercy
Create image

“The knowledge of the individual citizen is of less value than the knowledge of science. The former is the opinion of individuals. It is merely subjective and is excluded from policies. The latter is objective - defined by science and promulgated by expert spokesmen. This objective knowledge is viewed as a commodity which can be refined... and fed into a process, now called decision-making. This new mythology of governance by the manipulation of knowledge-stock inevitably erodes reliance on government by people.”

PeopleGovernmentValuesIndividualProcessDecisionOpinionPolicyCitizensMythologyObjectivesDefinedFormerExpertsLatterDecision MakingFedsManipulationCommoditySubjectiveGovernanceRelianceRefinedExcludedErode
Author:Ivan Illich
Create image