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Civic Duty Quotes

Browse 143 quotes about Civic Duty.

Civic Duty Quotes

“Beyond the Nature of Truth (The Sonnet) Do you realize how serious the situation is, Are you aware of the lives ruined by cruelty? Because if you stay aloof in your cloud castle, All talk of humanity is but a tale of fantasy. Can you tell the real from the unreal, Can you tell facts from fantasy? I am not talkin' in terms of neuroscience, I am askin' you as a human, of human responsibility. We can argue about the nature of truth all we want, But that won't alleviate the suffering of society. So the question is, do you know the worth of life, How far will you go to preserve another's serenity! Does human welfare overpower your insecurity? Or is the self still separate from society?”

“You are still worried about machines taking over your lives! Your lives are already taken over, not by mechanical deities but by organic sectarian deities born of the womb of your own indifference.”

“A child who cares for their friends is an adult, whereas an adult who doesn't care for their neighbor is a child. A child who cares for their friends is a reformist, whereas an adult who keeps quiet while their neighbor is mistreated is a terrorist.”

“Inert objects look good on the mantelpiece. That's about all. They have no other role under the sun. Don’t be a showpiece on the mantelpiece my friend - be a mental piece, and blow your top every time you witness an injustice taking place, and do whatever is necessary to restrain the wrong.”

“The kinds of people we need in government are precisely the kinds of people who are most reluctant to go into government -- people who understand the inherent dangers of power and feel a distaste for using it, but who may do so for a few years as a civic duty. The worst kind of people to have in government are those who see it as a golden opportunity to impose their own superior wisdom and virtue on others.”

“The dignity of the act is the deliberate, circumspect, open, and serene performance by these men in the clear light of day, and by a concurrent purpose, of a civic duty, which embraced the greatest hazards to themselves and to all the people from whom they held this deputed discretion, but which, to their sober judgments, promised benefits to that people and their posterity, from generation to generation, exceeding these hazards and commensurate with its own fitness.”

“I regard the state of which I am a citizen as a public utility, like the organization that supplies me with water, gas, and electricity. I feel that it is my civic duty to pay my taxes as well as my other bills, and that it is my moral duty to make an honest declaration of my income to the income tax authorities. But I do not feel that I and my fellow citizens have a religious duty to sacrifice our lives in war on behalf of our own state, and, a fortiori, I do not feel that we have an obligation or a right to kill and maim citizens of other states or to devastate their land.”

“Using the language of heroism, calling Daniel Ellsberg a hero, and calling the other people who made great sacrifices heroes - even though what they have done is heroic - is to distinguish them from the civic duty they performed, and excuses the rest of us from the same civic duty to speak out when we see something wrong, when we witness our government engaging in serious crimes, abusing power, engaging in massive historic violations of the Constitution of the United States. We have to speak out or we are party to that bad action.”

“I think it is every woman's duty to make herself as attractive as her time and means permit. After all, there you are, in your person- a living symbol of the progress of art, science and imagination. To be as attractive as we can be is almost a civic duty; there are so many sad and ugly things in the world that I think women should say to themselves humbly, not with vanity, 'I will try to be as pretty as I can, so that when people look at me, they will feel refreshed. I will make an effort to be easy on the eye.'”