Quotes about citizen
page 10

“We need honest, reasoned debate; not fear-mongering. To those who pit Americans against immigrants, and citizens against non-citizens; to those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty; my message to you is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists- for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies, and pause to America's friends. They encourage people of good will to remain silent in the face of evil.”

John Ashcroft (1942) American politician

Source: Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (2006), p. 192

Love, People, Fear, Peace

“When citizens testify before grand juries they are required to tell the truth. Without the truth, our criminal justice system cannot serve our nation or its citizens.”

Patrick Fitzgerald (1960) American lawyer

CIA probe 'not over' after Cheney's top aide indicted on CNN.com (October 28, 2005)

Truth, Justice

“The renunciation of war indemnities, which has been greatly lauded in some quarters here, does not appear to me only in the shining light of the conciliation it will lead to, but, as a citizen, I also see it in the light of the colossal burdens to which Germany will be exposed if this struggle ends without war indemnities.”

Gustav Stresemann (1878–1929) German politician, statesman, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate

1910s, Speech in the Reichstag, 18 March 1918

War, Light, Appearance

“The choice you make this November will shape great things, historic things, and those things will determine the most intimate and important aspects of every American life and every American family. This is an election about America, and it is an election about the American family. All elections matter. This one matters a great deal. Over the years of our nation’s history, choices our fellow citizens have made have changed the country’s course–they were turning points of defining consequence.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

2012-10-26
http://foxnewsinsider.com/2012/10/26/transcript-mitt-romney-delivers-speech-on-the-economy/
TRANSCRIPT: Mitt Romney Delivers Speech on the Economy
Fox News
2012

Life, Family, History, Change

“As a corollary to the proposition that all institutions must be subordinated to the law of equal freedom, we cannot choose but admit the right of the citizen to adopt a condition of voluntary outlawry. If every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man, then he is free to drop connection with the state — to relinquish its protection, and to refuse paying towards its support.”

Herbert Spencer book Social Statics

Pt. III, Ch. 19 : The Right to Ignore the State, § 1 http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/273#lf0331_label_200 Social Statics (1851) Context: As a corollary to the proposition that all institutions must be subordinated to the law of equal freedom, we cannot choose but admit the right of the citizen to adopt a condition of voluntary outlawry. If every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man, then he is free to drop connection with the state — to relinquish its protection, and to refuse paying towards its support. It is self-evident that in so behaving he in no way trenches upon the liberty of others; for his position is a passive one; and whilst passive he cannot become an aggressor. It is equally selfevident that he cannot be compelled to continue one of a political corporation, without a breach of the moral law, seeing that citizenship involves payment of taxes; and the taking away of a man’s property against his will, is an infringement of his rights. Government being simply an agent employed in common by a number of individuals to secure to them certain advantages, the very nature of the connection implies that it is for each to say whether he will employ such an agent or not. If any one of them determines to ignore this mutual-safety confederation, nothing can be said except that he loses all claim to its good offices, and exposes himself to the danger of maltreatment — a thing he is quite at liberty to do if he likes. He cannot be coerced into political combination without a breach of the law of equal freedom; he can withdraw from it without committing any such breach; and he has therefore a right so to withdraw.

Law, Support, Freedom

“The American states have gone far in assisting the progress of truth; but they have stopped short of perfection. They ought to have given every honest citizen an equal right to enjoy his religion and an equal title to all civil emoluments, without obliging him to tell his religion. Every interference of the civil power in regulating opinion, is an impious attempt to take the business of the Deity out of his own hands; and every preference given to any religious denomination, is so far slavery and bigotry.”

Noah Webster (1758–1843) lexicographer, textbook pioneer, English-language spelling reformer, writer, editor and author

Sketches of American Policy. (1785) p.27

Truth, Religion, Business, Perfection

“Blacks got federal passports implying that they were citizens… The Articles of Confederation stated that "the free inhabitants of these states… shall be entitled to all privileges of immunities of free citizens in the several states", Congress voted down South Carolina's proposal to insert the word "white" into this clause.”

Thomas G. West (1945) American academic

2000s, Vindicating the Founders (2001)

“We are the real Americans. Everett Moran, standing brave and resolute in the face of bigotry, is a real American. George Soros, devoting his life and his fortune to serving those less fortunate than he is, is a real American. The citizens of California who have donated their own money to support stem cell research, to compensate for the cowardice of our Taliban government, are real Americans. The rest of them? The ones that destroy the Constitution in service to their narrow-minded and zealously self-centered agendas? Those pinheads sure as hell aren't Americans. Secession. That's what we need.”

Ayelet Waldman (1964) American- Israeli writer

Blog post http://bad-mother.blogspot.com/2004/11/todays-new-york-times.html

Life, Money, Hell, Support

“Clearly, the court today has ignored the constitutional right and responsibility of Congress to pass laws protecting citizens from dangerous and addictive narcotics…”

Bob Barr (1948) Republican and Libertarian politician

Press release (28 March 2002), as quoted in "Barr to Continue Fight Against Drug Legalization" http://www.mpp.org/legislation/dc/bills/barr-to-continue-fight-against-drug-legalization.html, MPP. 2000s, 2002

Law

“The battles waged by our troops are part of a broader struggle between two dramatically different systems. Under one, a small band of fanatics demands total obedience to an oppressive ideology, condemns women to subservience, and marks unbelievers for murder. The other system is based on the conviction that freedom is the universal gift of Almighty God and that liberty and justice light the path to peace. This is the belief that gave birth to our nation. And in the long run, advancing this belief is the only practical way to protect our citizens.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2009, Farewell speech to the nation (January 2009)

Women, God, Peace, Justice

“Those who catch faint glimpses, in Birmingham or Notting Hill, of what others have dreaded for years, those who find themselves strangers and aliens in one familiar area after another of an English town or city, those who hear from others' lips with diminishing incredulity the circumstances in which less fortunate fellow-citizens live, should repeat to themselves over and over again one single sentence, sad, simple and true: "You have seen nothing yet". Then let them give to those who presume to represent and govern them no peace and no respite until they have led the nation from under the shadow of the disaster which overhangs it.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Speech to the Surrey Branch of the Monday Club in Croydon (4 October 1976), from A Nation or No Nation? Six Years in British Politics (Elliot Right Way Books, 1977), p. 174.
1970s

Sadness, Peace

“Fortify ourselves and shoulder our responsibility as citizens who truly love their motherland.”

Abdul Halim of Kedah (1927–2017) King of Malaysia

Installation Ceremony https://books.google.com.my/books?id=P3ZODwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false, 11/4/2012

Love

“Dear citizens. Now I plan to jump off a bridge over the Han River. I hope you give us the last chance. Please lend us 100 million won which will be used for paying back debt and seed money of our organization… I know this is shameful. I'm sorry. I'll repent for the last of my life.”

Sung Jae-gi (1967–2013) South Korean masculism activist

As quoted in "Activist's 'suicide' causes huge stir" http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2013/07/116_140028.html Koreatimes 2013.07.26

Life, Money, Hope, Chance

“I found out later that, NSA had approached the telecommunications companies in February of 2001, this is 8 months before 9/11 asking for all the customer data, that is the billing data on phone calls made from US citizens to other US citizens. In fact, the entire customer set. So, and that's fundamentally what they did after 9/11, here they were asking 8 months before. And what that meant to me was that this was the design from the beginning that management had made the plans to spy on the United States and people in the United States even before 9/11. Ok, then, when 9/11 occurred, that was the pure excuse for them to go in and say, 'now, telecoms, we really need the data now, to be able to do this to be, to protect the United States from terrorism.”

William Binney former U.S. intelligence official and cryptoanalyst; whistleblower

and that was simply false to begin with. We had no problem at all identifying these people from the beginning." source: William Binney - 'The Government is Profiling You' - video lecture at MIT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB3KR8fWNh0

People, Problem, Falseness

“One of the difficulties that confronts anyone who attempts to answer the question, "Who rules in a pluralist democracy?" is the ambiguous relationship of leaders to citizens.”

Robert A. Dahl book Who Governs?

Who Governs?: Democracy and Power in an American City (1961), p. 89

Democracy, Question

“At our worst in the Middle East, we unreservedly supported—or enthroned—medieval despots who suppressed popular liberation efforts, thus driving moderate dissidents into the arms of fanatics. From our diplomatic personnel held hostage in Iran a generation ago, to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the United States, we have suffered for our support of repressive "stable" regimes that radicalized their own impoverished citizens. In the interests of stability, we looked the other way while secret police tortured and shabby armies massacred their own people, from Iran to Guatemala. But the shah always falls. Would that we could tattoo that on the back of every diplomat's hand: The shah always falls.”

Ralph Peters (1952) American military officer, writer, pundit

Source: 2000s, Beyond Terror: Strategy in a Changing World (2002), p. 174: originally published as "Stability, America's Enemy" in Parameters, Winter 2001-02

People, Secret, Way, Support

“A Frenchman is self-assured because he regards himself personally, both in mind and body, as irresistibly attractive to men and women. An Englishman is self-assured, as being a citizen of the best-organized state in the world, and therefore as an Englishman always knows what he should do and knows that all he does as an Englishman is undoubtedly correct. An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets himself and other people. A Russian is self-assured just because he knows nothing and does not want to know anything, since he does not believe that anything can be known. The German's self-assurance is worst of all, stronger and more repulsive than any other, because he imagines that he knows the truth — science — which he himself has invented but which is for him the absolute truth.”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

Bk. IX, ch. 10
War and Peace (1865–1867; 1869)

Women, Men, People, Truth

“Government is essentially a big computer that elicits from citizens their preferences and uses this information to produce social decisions.”

Harvey S. Rosen (1949) American economist

Source: Public Finance - International Edition - Sixth Edition, Chapter 6, Political Economy, p. 117

Decision

“Well, now the American people have returned the Republican party to power; and the question is, what will it do? … For a dozen years and more the Republican party has seemed in a measure paralyzed in the presence of high-handed fraud and brutal violence toward its newly-made citizens. The question now is, will it regain its former health, activity, and power? Will it be as true to its friends in the South as the Democratic party has been to its friends in that section, or will it sacrifice its friends to conciliate its enemies? … Not only the negro but all honest men, north and south, must hold the Republican party in contempt, if it fails to do its whole duty at this point. The Republican party has made the colored man free; and the Republican party must make him secure in his freedom, or abandon its pretensions.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

Speech http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/the-nations-problem/

Men, People, Health, Color

“Good evening. Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts. The victims were in airplanes or in their offices -- secretaries, businessmen and women, military and federal workers. Moms and dads. Friends and neighbors. Thousands of lives were suddenly ended by evil, despicable acts of terror.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2001, A Great People Has Been Moved to Defend a Great Nation (September 2001)

Life, Women, Way, Moms

“Fellow citizens: The year ahead will demand more patience, sacrifice, and resolve. It can be tempting to think that America can put aside the burdens of freedom. Yet times of testing reveal the character of a nation. And throughout our history, Americans have always defied the pessimists and seen our faith in freedom redeemed. Now America is engaged in a new struggle that will set the course for a new century. We can, and we will, prevail.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2007, Address to the Nation (January 2007)

Faith, History, Thinking, Freedom

“I will propose a Highway Safety Act of 1966 to seek an end to this mounting tragedy. We must also act to prevent the deception of the American consumer—requiring all packages to state clearly and truthfully their contents—all interest and credit charges to be fully revealed—and keeping harmful drugs and cosmetics away from our stores. It is the genius of our Constitution that under its shelter of enduring institutions and rooted principles there is ample room for the rich fertility of American political invention. We must change to master change. I propose to take steps to modernize and streamline the executive branch, to modernize the relations between city and state and nation. A new Department of Transportation is needed to bring together our transportation activities. The present structure—35 government agencies, spending $5 billion yearly—makes it almost impossible to serve either the growing demands of this great nation or the needs of the industry, or the right of the taxpayer to full efficiency and real frugality. I will propose in addition a program to construct and to flight-test a new supersonic transport airplane that will fly three times the speed of sound—in excess of 2,000 miles per hour. I propose to examine our federal system-the relation between city, state, nation, and the citizens themselves. We need a commission of the most distinguished scholars and men of public affairs to do this job. I will ask them to move on to develop a creative federalism to best use the wonderful diversity of our institutions and our people to solve the problems and to fulfill the dreams of the American people. As the process of election becomes more complex and more costly, we must make it possible for those without personal wealth to enter public life without being obligated to a few large contributors. Therefore, I will submit legislation to revise the present unrealistic restriction on contributions—to prohibit the endless proliferation of committees, bringing local and state committees under the act—to attach strong teeth and severe penalties to the requirement of full disclosure of contributions—and to broaden the participation of the people, through added tax incentives, to stimulate small contributions to the party and to the candidate of their choice.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, State of the Union Address (1966)

Life, Men, People, Penalty

“The aim of the Nazis was to enslave all the peoples, who were to be the mere instruments of the Germans, the Herrenfolk, the master class. To that we opposed the democratic ideal, whereby we saw the world as a community of nations, differing in their qualities but united in a comity of nations, like the citizens of a town, but recognizing each other's rights and uniting for common purposes.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Chesterfield (13 June 1941), quoted in The Times (14 June 1941), p. 2.
1940s

People, World, Communication

“A Chinaman can ride in the same passenger coach with white citizens of the United States, while citizens of the black race in Louisiana, many of whom, perhaps, risked their lives for the preservation of the Union, who are entitled, by law, to participate in the political control of the State and nation, who are not excluded, by law or by reason of their race, from public stations of any kind, and who have all the legal rights that belong to white citizens, are yet declared to be criminals, liable to imprisonment, if they ride in a public coach occupied by citizens of the white race. He does not object, nor, perhaps, would he object to separate coaches for his race if his rights under the law were recognized. But he objecting, and ought never to cease objecting, to the proposition that citizens of the white and black race can be adjudged criminals because they sit, or claim the right to sit, in the same public coach on a public highway.”

John Marshall Harlan (1833–1911) United States Union Army officer and Supreme Court Associate Justice

1890s, Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

Law

“One of the great strengths of America is our active public square. Issues are influenced by the will of the people. That is why an educated citizenry is so important to the success of our country. As SMU graduates, you are well-equipped to participate in these vital debates. My hope is that you speak out on the issues that matter to you. Participate in your Nation’s civic life as citizens, not spectators. You’ll come to learn that who you are is more important than what you have—and that you have responsibilities to your fellow citizens, your country, and your family. By taking part in American democracy, you will make our country stronger.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2010s, 2015, Remarks at the SMU 100th Spring Commencement (May 2015)

Life, People, Education, Family

“You have called upon us to expose ourselves to all the subtle machinations of their malignity for all time. And now, what do you propose to do when you come to make peace? To reward your enemies, and trample in the dust your friends? Do you intend to sacrifice the very men who have come to the rescue of your banner in the South, and incurred the lasting displeasure of their masters thereby? Do you intend to sacrifice them and reward your enemies? Do you mean to give your enemies the right to vote, and take it away from your friends? Is that wise policy? Is that honorable? Could American honor withstand such a blow? I do not believe you will do it. I think you will see to it that we have the right to vote. There is something too mean in looking upon the Negro, when you are in trouble, as a citizen, and when you are free from trouble, as an alien. When this nation was in trouble, in its early struggles, it looked upon the Negro as a citizen. In 1776 he was a citizen. At the time of the formation of the Constitution the Negro had the right to vote in eleven States out of the old thirteen. In your trouble you have made us citizens. In 1812 General Jackson addressed us as citizens; 'fellow-citizens'. He wanted us to fight. We were citizens then! And now, when you come to frame a conscription bill, the Negro is a citizen again. He has been a citizen just three times in the history of this government, and it has always been in time of trouble. In time of trouble we are citizens. Shall we be citizens in war, and aliens in peace? Would that be just?”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1860s, What the Black Man Wants (1865)

Men, War, Peace, History

“I am a citizen of the Soviet Union and I think sharp measures need to be taken against anti-Soviet forces that are trying to make their way into the leadership. In addition, it is vitally important to maintain the lines of communication with Germany through Poland.”

Konstantin Rokossovsky (1896–1968) Soviet and Polish military commander

Quoted in "Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev" - by Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev - Heads of state - 2007

Way, Communication, Thinking

“The gun control mentality is ruthlessly absurd. It suggests that you pass a law which will bind law-abiding citizens — they won't have access to weapons. Now, we know that criminals, by definition, are people who don't obey laws. Therefore, you can pass all the laws that you want, they will still have access to these weapons, just as they have access to illegal drugs and other things right now. That means you end up with a situation in which the law-abiding folks can't defend themselves, and the crooks have all the guns.”

Alan Keyes (1950) American politician

Alan Keyes, U.S. Senate debate in Illinois, October 21, 2004. http://www.renewamerica.us/archives/media/debates/04_10_21debate2.htm. 2009

People, Law

“Just as people are born, live a time, and die by diseases or old age, in the same way republics are formed, flower a few centuries, and perish finally by the audacity of a citizen, or by the weapons of their enemies. All has their period; all empires, and largest monarchies even, have only so much time: the republics feel continually that this time will arrive, and they look at any too-powerful family as the carriers of a disease which will give them the blow of death.”

Frederick II of Prussia book Anti-Machiavel

Source: Anti-Machiavel, Chapter IX

Death, People, Age, Disease

“Some Tories have tried to make political capital by demonising minorities instead of showing confidence in all the citizens of our country.”

Theresa May (1956) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the Conservative Party conference http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2002/oct/07/conservatives2002.conservatives1 (07 October 2002)

Confidence, Country

“Of course, corporations and governments have a right to something for their money. They pay the wages. But they don't have the ethical right to literally purchase the copyright of a citizen's potential contribution to society. In a democracy they should not have the legal right to silence the quasi-totality of the functioning élite in order to satisfy a managerial taste for control and secrecy.”

John Ralston Saul (1947) Canadian author and essayist

On Equilibrium (2001)

Money, Democracy, Silence

“If a state should pass laws forbidding its citizens to become wise and holy, it would be made a byword for all time. But this, in effect, is what our commercial, social, and political systems do. They compel the sacrifice of mental and moral power to money and dissipation.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 62

Money, Law, Time

“Our Constitution has given us the framework for a strong nation, a Union of States; a nation of harmony between the Union and States and between the various institutions of our democratic polity. We can claim to have achieved significant success in the diverse and inter-connected spheres of democratic governance, our Parliament, the Executive and the Judiciary. The philosophy of the Constitution nurtures a polity where the precepts and practices of democracy can become second nature to the people. Through the elections to eleven Lok Sabhas, the people of India have repeatedly displayed their determination to fulfil their duties as responsible citizens of the Republic.”

Shankar Dayal Sharma (1918–1999) Indian politician

Address By Dr. Shanker Dayal Sharma President Of India On The Occasion Of The 50th Anniversary Of The First Sitting Of The Constituent Assembly

People, Democracy, Nature, Strong

“…[I]n three notable instances the Court has suffered severely from self-inflicted wounds. The first of these was the Dred Scott case. … There the Supreme Court decided that Dred Scott, a negro, not being a citizen could not sue in the United States Courts and that Congress could not prohibit slavery in the territories. … [T]he grave injury that the Court sustained through its decision has been universally recognized. Its action was a public calamity. … [W]idespread and bitter attacks upon the judges who joined in the decision undermined confidence in the Court. … It was many years before the Court, even under new judges, was able to retrieve its reputation.…[The second instance was] the legal tender cases decided in 1870. … From the standpoint of the effect on public opinion there can be no doubt that the reopening of the case was a serious mistake and the overruling in such a short time, and by one vote, of the previous decision shook popular respect for the Court.… [The third instance happened] [t]wenty-five years later, when the Court had recovered its prestige, [and] its action in the income tax cases gave occasion for a bitter assault. … [After questions about the validity of the income tax] had been reserved owing to an equal division of the Court, a reargument was ordered and in the second decision the act was held to be unconstitutional by a majority of one. Justice Jackson was ill at the time of the first argument but took part in the final decision, voting in favor of the validity of the statute. It was evident that the result [holding the statute invalid] was brought about by a change in the vote of one of the judges who had participated in the first decision. … [T]he decision of such an important question by a majority of one after one judge had changed his vote aroused a criticism of the Court which has never been entirely stilled.”

Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948) American judge

"The Supreme Court of the United States: Its Foundation, Methods and Achievements," Columbia University Press, p. 50 (1928). ISBN 1-893122-85-9.

Justice, Confidence, Question, Decision

“I have joined the political arena so that the powerful can no longer beat up on people that cannot defend themselves. Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it. I have seen firsthand how the system is rigged against our citizens, just like it was rigged against Bernie Sanders – he never had a chance.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, July, (21 July 2016)

People, Chance

“I would rather have as my patron a host of anonymous citizens digging into their own pockets for the price of a book or a magazine than a small body of enlightened and responsible men administering public funds. I would rather chance my personal vision of truth striking home here and there in the chaos of publication that exists than attempt to filter it through a few sets of official, honorably public-spirited scruples.”

John Updike (1932–2009) American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic

Testimony given before the Subcommittee on Select Education of the House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor, Boston (January 30, 1978)

Men, Truth, Books, Home

“Britain, with the most completely socialized health system in the West, now spends the lowest fraction of GNP on health care of any major nation. There are frequent complaints of excessive waits for elective surgery and other inconveniences, but British citizens live slightly longer than Americans, on average, and our overall health conditions are comparable.”

Robert Kuttner (1943) American journalist

Source: The Economic Illusion (1984), Chapter 6, Welfare, p. 250

Health, Waiting

“Whatever "Cold War system" there might once have been here is already defunct. There was never such a system in the minds of the opposed leaders, despite the peninsula’s tragic importance to Moscow and Washington. It might have been better if there had been. I’m not being flippant. Germans in East and West benefited from how each system tried to prove itself more compassionate and democratic, more conducive to its citizens' realization of their potential than the other. The relevant standards could hardly have been more different, but still. In contrast North and South Korea slid quickly into mutual nationalist recrimination, with each side accusing the other of subservience to a foreign power. This (not the over-weighted fact that Ossis and Wessis never clashed on the battlefield) is the main reason Bonn and East Berlin were able to maintain a coldly civil working relationship, routinizing mail service, family reunions, transit, etc, even at the height of Cold War tension.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

2010s, Confederation Again (July 2018)

War, Family

“Why should it be insulting? … Something happened there which led to other events. Many innocent people were killed there. Some of those people were American citizens obviously. We obviously are very much against any terrorist action and any killing. And also we are very much against any plots to sow the seeds of discord among nations. Usually you go to these sites to pay your respects. And-- also to perhaps to air your views about the root causes of such incidents. I think that when I do that, I will be paying, as I said earlier, my respect to the American nation.”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (1956) 6th President of the Islamic Republic of Iran

When asked about his stated desire to visit the site of the World Trade Center in an interview with Scott Pelley of 60 Minutes, 20 September 2007.
[20 September 2007, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/20/world/main3280561.shtml, "CBS News - Ahmadinejad: How Is WTC Visit Insulting", cbsnews.com, 2007-10-12]
2007

People, Thinking

“Again, therefore, the wretched remnant, sending to Aetius, a powerful Roman citizen, address him as follow:—"To Aetius, now consul for the third time: the groans of the Britons". And again a little further, thus:—"The barbarians drive us to the sea; the sea throws us back on the barbarians: thus two modes of death await us, we are either slain or drowned."”
Igitur rursum miserae mittentes epistolas reliquiae ad Agitium Romanae potestatis virum, hoc modo loquentes: ""Agitio ter consuli gemitus Britannorum""; et post pauca querentes: ""repellunt barbari ad mare, repellit mare ad barbaros; inter haec duo genera funerum aut iugulamur aut mergimur"".

Gildas De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae

Igitur rursum miserae mittentes epistolas reliquiae ad Agitium Romanae potestatis virum, hoc modo loquentes: "Agitio ter consuli gemitus Britannorum"; et post pauca querentes: "repellunt barbari ad mare, repellit mare ad barbaros; inter haec duo genera funerum aut iugulamur aut mergimur".
Section 20.
These "Groans of the Britons" were sent to the Roman military leader Flavius Aetius in Gaul, in response to the invasion of Britain by the Angles and Saxons.
De Excidio Britanniae (On the Ruin of Britain)

Death, Time, Sea

“I cannot speak for all, but I have talked to many artists who feel this way - we have lost even our belief that we are the minority that knows. We believed ten years ago, twenty years ago, that we knew the secret. Now we have lost this belief. We are a minority with no power and no belief, no faith. I feel myself, as an artist and as a citizen, just totally obsolete… Okay, it can be done this way or that way or this way, or in splashes or smoothly, but why? What the hell is it about? That's why we wanted to ask people. For us - from our point of view - it's a sincere thing to understand something, to change course. Because the way we live we cannot live anymore. I have never seen artists so desperate as they are now, in this society.”

Alexander Melamid (1945) Russian artist

Vitaly Komar, ‎Aleksandr Melamid, ‎JoAnn Wypijewski (1997). Painting by Numbers: Komar and Melamid's Scientific Guide to Art p. 16

People, Secret, Faith, Way

“They (Indo-Fijians) came as indentured laborers to this land and were treated harshly. They had little reason to be grateful to their colonial masters and like the indigenous Fijians. The British crown colony of Fiji was funded in part from their toil, yet they were treated like second-class citizens.”

Joni Madraiwiwi (1957–2016) Fijian politician

Poppy Drive speech, 21 October 2005.

Parting

“A Man ought to form in his own Mind an exact and clear Idea of what Liberty is. Liberty is the Right of doing whatsoever the Laws allow: And if any one Citizen could do what the Laws forbid, there would be no more Liberty; because others would have an equal Power of doing the same.”

Catherine the Great (1729–1796) Empress of Russia

Item 38
Proposals for a New Law Code (1768)

Law, Idea

“The brave and clear platform adopted by this convention, to which I heartily subscribe, sets forth that government in a modern civilization has certain inescapable obligations to its citizens, among which are protection of the family and the home, the establishment of a democracy of opportunity, and aid to those overtaken by disaster.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States

1930s, Speech to the Democratic National Convention (1936)

Family, Democracy, Home

“We have now done what the Romans did when they started to commit suicide. We have shifted from an army of citizens to an army of mercenaries…”

Carroll Quigley (1910–1977) American historian

Oscar Iden Lecture Series, Lecture 3: "The State of Individuals" (1976)

Suicide

“Mr. Chairman, delegates, and fellow citizens: I am honored by the support of this convention for vice president of the United States. I accept the duty to help lead our nation out of a jobs crisis and back to prosperity — and I know we can do this. I accept the calling of my generation to give our children the America that was given to us, with opportunity for the young and security for the old — and I know that we are ready. Our nominee is sure ready. His whole life has prepared him for this moment — to meet serious challenges in a serious way, without excuses and idle words. After four years of getting the run-around, America needs a turnaround, and the man for the job is Governor Mitt Romney.”

Paul Ryan (1970) American politician

Republican national convention, , quoted in * 2012-08-29
Transcript: Rep. Paul Ryan's Convention Speech
NPR
http://www.npr.org/2012/08/29/160282031/transcript-rep-paul-ryans-convention-speech
2012-09-30

Life, Children, Way, Support

“…there has accumulated a vast tangle of emergency legislation, regulations, barriers and restraints, out of all proportion to and often missing and distorting the needs of the situation. For the restoration and modernisation of human civilization, this exaggerated outlawing of the fellow citizen whom we see fit to suspect as a traitor or revolutionary and also of the stranger within our gates, has to be restrained and brought back within the scheme of human rights.”

H. G. Wells (1866–1946) English writer

The Rights of Man, or what are we fighting for? (1940)

“We…have enfranchised the whole adult and labouring population of these islands, saints and sinners alike, and are attempting the immense double enterprise not only of making each citizen count as one and an end in himself, but also of asking him to share effectively and intelligently in the responsibilities of municipal citizenship and imperial government…Democracy is still an aspiration and not a fact…What we have achieved is a democratic framework of government, which is not the same thing as a democratic society. We have perfected the machinery of popular government, and one immediate danger is that it may be seized and exploited in undemocratic ways for democratic ends. In the name of the sovereign people deeds may be done as cruel as those done by any Greek tyrant or mediaeval despot. It is terribly easy for those in power to confuse justice with the interest of the strong; but oppression of the few by the many is just as ugly as its opposite.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

The John Clifford Lecture at Coventry (14 July 1930), published in This Torch of Freedom (1935), pp. 39-40.
1930

People, Justice, Way, Democracy

“Thank you all. I want you all to know; it can't go any louder. I want you all to know that America today, America today is on bended knee. In prayer for people whose lives were lost here, for the workers who work here. for the families who mourn. This nation stands with the good people of New York City and New Jersey and Connecticut as we mourn the loss of thousands of our citizens.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2001, I Can Hear You, the Rest of the World Hears You (September 2001)

People, Family, Loss

“To State Department employees: "Yours is not an easy task nor one which is much appreciated. You don't ask much of your fellow citizens, and if any of you are so inexperienced that you ever do, you will receive very little. Certainly not much in the form of material recompense; certainly not much in the form of appreciation for your work, because you are dealing with matters which, though they affect life of every citizen of this country intimately, do it in ways which it is not easy for every citizen to understand. And so you are dealing in a field which I called the other day a field of 'alien knowledge,' which seems strange to many of your fellow citizens … We have a tradition in this country of skepticism about government, of looking at it very carefully, of seeing whether our public servants can take it. That isn't always comfortable, but, on the whole, it is good. Any time when there are governments in the world which are crushing the liberties of their citizens, it is good that in this great country people look with some skepticism upon government as such. That is one of our traditions … "”

Dean Acheson book Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969), Principles

Life, People, World, Way

“Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade. This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens — leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children. This is a regime that agreed to international inspections — then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2002, State of the Union address (January 2002)

Hostility, Children, World, Support

“Bernard Shaw remains the only model we have of what the citizen of a democracy should be: an informed participant in all things we deem important to the society and the individual.”

Jacques Barzun (1907–2012) Historian

"Bernard Shaw," in A Jacques Barzun Reader : Selections from his works (2002), p. 231

Democracy

“The tax upon land values is, therefore, the most just and equal of all taxes. It falls only upon those who receive from society a peculiar and valuable benefit, and upon them in proportion to the benefit they receive. It is the taking by the community, for the use of the community, of that value which is the creation of the community. It is the application of the common property to common uses. When all rent is taken by taxation for the needs of the community, then will the equality ordained by Nature be attained. No citizen will have an advantage over any other citizen save as is given by his industry, skill, and intelligence; and each will obtain what he fairly earns. Then, but not till then, will labor get its full reward, and capital its natural return.”

Henry George book Progress and Poverty

Book VIII, Ch. 3
Progress and Poverty (1879)

Intelligence, Communication, Nature

“Citizens’ right to document cruelty to animals — wherever it occurs — is crucial in helping local, state and federal officials enforce anti-cruelty laws. Authorities can’t be everywhere at once, and funding for enforcement of anti-cruelty laws is sorely lacking in most places. What we need are more cameras on factory farms, not fewer.”

Cloris Leachman (1926) American actress

"Don’t Cover Up Animal Cruelty" https://www.huffingtonpost.com/cloris-leachman/post_1981_b_854721.html, in the HuffPost (27 April 2011).

Law, Help, Animals

“…there is a limited elite that understands the secrets of their own techniques, but not necessarily of all techniques. These men are close to the seat of modern governmental power. The state is no longer founded on the 'average citizen', but on the ability and knowledge of this elite. The average man is altogether unable to penetrate technical secrets or governmental organization and consequently can exert no influence at all on the state.”

Jacques Ellul book The Technological Society

Source: The Technological Society (1954), p. 274

Men, Secret, Understanding, Knowledge

“The members of this delegation, whom I have much pleasure in receiving, are all American citizens who chance to have been born in other countries than our own. You have called upon me to testify for yourselves and the millions of others who, though not natives to our soil, are in every other respect thorough-going, loyal and devoted Americans. I am glad to welcome you, not only to this place, but to the full privileges and opportunities, and especially to the full responsibilities and duties, of American citizens. It is not very long, as history views matters, since all of us were alien to this soil. I suppose that if Methuselah were at this time an American in his period of middle life, and should drop in on our little party, he would regard us all as upstarts. Fortunately, American ideas of hospitality have been greatly modified since the times when some of my early American forbears argued the matter with the Indian known as King Philip. He and his Indian supporters regarded themselves as the real Americans, and maintained their case all too effectively.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, The Genius of America (1924)

Life, Pleasure, History, Idea

“There is much in American society which I admire, but I have long held the view that the absence of an effective safety net in that country means that too many needy citizens fall by the wayside. That is not the path that Australia will tread. Nor do we want the burdens of nanny state paternalism that now weigh down many economies in Europe.”

John Howard (1939) 25th Prime Minister of Australia

Australia Day Address, 25 January 2006

Country

“[T]he Constitution of the United States knows no distinction between citizens on account of color.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1860s, Reconstruction (1866)

Color

“We consider a prisoner unfortunate. He is unfortunate in two ways — because he has done something wrong and because he is deprived of his liberty. Therefore we should treat him kindly, because of his misfortune, for otherwise he would become hard and bitter and would not be sorry he had done wrong. Ozma thinks that one who has committed a fault did so because he was not strong and brave; therefore she puts him in prison to make him strong and brave. When that is accomplished he is no longer a prisoner, but a good and loyal citizen and everyone is glad that he is now strong enough to resist doing wrong. You see, it is kindness that makes one strong and brave; and so we are kind to our prisoners.”

L. Frank Baum book The Patchwork Girl of Oz

The Patchwork Girl of Oz
Later Oz novels

Way, Thinking, Strong

“Russian leaders and regular citizens have felt increasingly insecure… They have a sense that Russia is under siege from without and has been robbed of its rightful status as a world power… Europeans at least have recourse at the ballot box; they can angrily vote in or out whoever they like. Russians do not enjoy the luxury of democracy. Russians do not enjoy the luxury of democracy… The U. S. is many times more powerful and influential than Russia.”

Max Fisher American journalist

Max Fisher, "This quote about Putin's machismo from Angela Merkel is just devastating" http://www.vox.com/2014/12/1/7313443/vladimir-putin-merkel (20 May 2015), Vox.

World, Democracy, Sense, Time

“The evidence introduced for political pessimism; the criminal, the lunatic, and the asocial individual, in a word, the second-rate citizen —these are not by nature as one finds them now but have been made so by society. It is said that they have never had a chance to be as they would be according to their nature, but were forced into the situation in which they find themselves through poverty, coercion, and ignorance. They are victims of society.
This defense against political pessimism regarding human nature is at first convincing. It possesses the superiority of dialectical thinking over positivistic thinking. It transforms moral states and qualities into processes. Brutal people do not “exist,” only their brutalization; criminality does not “exist,” only criminalization; stupidity does not “exist,” only stupefaction; self-seeking does not “exist,” only training in egoism; there are no second-rate citizens, only victims of patronization. What political positivism takes to be nature is in reality falsified nature: the suppression of opportunity for human beings. Rousseau knew of two aids who could illustrate his point of view, two classes of human beings who lived before civilization and, consequently, before perversion: the noble savage and the child. Enlightenment literature develops two of its most intimate passions around these two figures: ethnology and pedagogy.”

Peter Sloterdijk (1947) German philosopher

(describing Rousseau’s philosophy) p. 55
Kritik der zynischen Vernunft [Critique of Cynical Reason] (1983)

People, Stupidity, Literature, Nature

“There are one or two things, which you can directly do in very critical times. But otherwise, this indirect influence that you can exercise on the affairs of the State is the most important role he can play. And, he can play it successfully only if he is, his ideas and his nature of functioning are seen by the public in tune with their standards. The President has to be a citizen and there must be some equation between the people and the President, and if some advice or something is to be given to the executive, it would be received with grace, it would be sometimes accepted, if it is known that the public opinion is on the side of the kind of advice the President is giving. Otherwise, he cannot exercise much influence.”

K. R. Narayanan (1920–2005) 9th Vice President and the 10th President of India

Shri K. R. Narayanan President of India in Conversation with N. Ram on Doordarshan and All India Radio

People, Exercises, Idea, Nature

“In my country there are 170,000 Armenians. Seventy thousand of them are citizens. We tolerate 100,000 more. So, what am I going to do tomorrow? If necessary I will tell the 100,000: OK, time to go back to your country. Why? They are not my citizens. I am not obliged to keep them in my country.”

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (1954) 12th President of Turkey from 2014

As quoted in "Shut Up About Armenians or We'll Hurt Them Again" http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2010/04/shut_up_about_armenians_or_well_hurt_them_again.html, Slate (April 5, 2010)

Time, Country

“I have no patience for injustice, no tolerance for government incompetence, no sympathy for leaders who fail their citizens.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, July, (21 July 2016)

Patience

“We are here to advance the cause of women and to advance the cause of democracy and to make it absolutely clear that the two are inseparable. There cannot be true democracy unless women's voices are heard. There cannot be true democracy unless women are given the opportunity to take responsibility for their own lives. There cannot be true democracy unless all citizens are able to participate fully in the lives of their country.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Keynote Address at the Vital Voices Conference in Vienna, Austria (11 July 1997)
White House years (1993–2000)

Women, Democracy, Country

“The world has recently been treated for nearly a decade to the unusual spectacle of a great empire deliberately taking every possible step to secure its own destruction, because its citizens were so obsessed by prejudice, or incapable of thinking for themselves, as never to perform the few logical steps necessary for proving that they would shortly be involved in a guerre à outrance, which could be neither averted nor escaped.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Powell's inaugural lecture as Professor of Greek (7 May 1938), from Greek in the University. An Inaugural Lecture (Oxford University Press, 1938), p. 9.
1930s

World, Thinking

“Who is secure in all his basic needs? Who has work, spiritual care, medical care, housing, food, occasional entertainment, free clothing, free burial, free everything? The answer might be “monks and nuns,” but the standard reply is, “prisoners.” And inevitably this conjures up citizens of the Provider State who have protection from the “cradle to the grave.””

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn (1909–1999) Austrian noble and political theorist

Source: Leftism Revisited (1990), p. 88

Food, Housing, Clothes

“If circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist.”

Alexander Hamilton Federalist Papers

No. 29
The Federalist Papers (1787–1788)

People, Appearance, Time

“This was not the first time Lito David backtracked on his issues against Senator Grace (Poe). Earlier, he also agreed to drop the residency issue in the petition he had filed against her due to a rule requiring the filing of disqualification case based on residency within 10 days from proclamation of the candidate. To say that a foundling like Senator Grace cannot be considered a citizen of the Philippines is a violation of an individual’s basic and alienable human right to bear a nationality from birth. The petition was given due course and Sen. Grace already faced him at the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET). I don’t understand why he called for a press conference against Sen. Grace, unless his motives are purely political. If indeed political, who is behind David? Why is he engaging Sen. Grace in a political discourse outside the SET?”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

Escudero, F. [Francis]. (2015, September 15). Retrieved from Official Facebook Page of Francis Escudero https://www.facebook.com/senchizescudero/posts/10153581153210610/ 2015, Facebook

Motivation, Birth, Understanding, Time

“The population of Athens and ns, imported from the coasts of the Propontis…. They were employed for domestic purposes, or were let out for hire in gangs as labourers, or were allowed to work by themselves paying a yearly royalty to their masters.
… hardly any Athenian citizen can have been without two or three. The family of Aeschines (consisting of 6 persons) was considered very poor because it possessed only 7 slaves. On the other hand, Plutarch says that let out 1,000 and Hipponicus 600 slaves to work the gold mines in Thrace. The state possessed some slaves of its own, who were employed chiefly as policemen and clerks.
Slaves enjoyed considerable liberties in Athens, and had some rights, even against their masters. They did not serve as soldiers, or sailors, except when the city was in great straits, as at the battle of Arginussae… The worst prospect in store for them was that their masters might be engaged in a lawsuit, for the evidence of a slave (except in a few cases) was not admitted in a court of justice unless he had been put to torture.
Slaves were sometimes freed by their masters, with some sort of public ceremony, or (for great services) by the state which paid their value to their masters.”

James Gow (scholar) (1854–1923) scholar

p, 125
A Companion to School Classics (1888)

Family, Justice, Personality

“The more we understand what is happening in the world, the more frustrated we often become, for our knowledge leads to feelings of powerlessness.
We feel that we are living in a world in which the citizen has become a mere spectator or a forced actor, and that our personal experience is politically useless and our political will a minor illusion. Very often, the fear of total permanent war paralyzes the kind of morally oriented politics, which might engage our interests and our passions. We sense the cultural mediocrity around us-and in us-and we know that ours is a time when, within and between all the nations of the world, the levels of public sensibilities have sunk below sight; atrocity on a mass scale has become impersonal and official; moral indignation as a public fact has become extinct or made trivial.
We feel that distrust has become nearly universal among men of affairs, and that the spread of public anxiety is poisoning human relations and drying up the roots of private freedom. We see that people at the top often identify rational dissent with political mutiny, loyalty with blind conformity, and freedom of judgment with treason. We feel that irresponsibility has become organized in high places and that clearly those in charge of the historic decisions of our time are not up to them. But what is more damaging to us is that we feel that those on the bottom-the forced actors who take the consequences-are also without leaders, without ideas of opposition, and that they make no real demands upon those with power.”

C. Wright Mills (1916–1962) American sociologist

Source: Letters & Autobiographical Writings (1954), pp. 184-185.

Men, War, People, World

“Let us first examine that nightmare to many Americans, especially our friends in California, the growing population of Japanese on the Pacific slope. It is undoubtedly true that in the past many thousands of Japanese have legally or otherwise got into the United States, settled here and raised up children who became American citizens. Californians have properly objected on the sound basic ground that Japanese immigrants are not capable of assimilation into the American population. If this had throughout the discussion been made the sole ground for the American attitude all would have been well, and the people of Japan would today understand and accept our decision.

Anyone who has traveled in the Far East knows that the mingling of Asiatic blood with European or American blood produces, in nine cases out of ten, the most unfortunate results. There are throughout the East many thousands of so-called Eurasians—men and women and children partly of Asiatic blood and partly of European or American blood. These Eurasians are, as a common thing, looked down on and despised, both by the European and American who reside there, and by the pure Asiatic who lives there.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States

Editorial for Macon Telegraph, April 30, 1925
1920s

Women, Men, Children, People

“I believe in limited government. I believe that government should be limited in many ways, and what I am going to emphasize is only an intellectual thing. I don't want to talk about everything at the same time. Let's take a small piece, an intellectual thing.No government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific principles, nor to prescribe in any way the character of the questions investigated. Neither may a government determine the aesthetic value of artistic creations, nor limit the forms of literary or artistic expression. Nor should it pronounce on the validity of economic, historic, religious, or philosophical doctrines. Instead it has a duty to its citizens to maintain the freedom, to let those citizens contribute to the further adventure and the development of the human race.”

Richard Feynman book The Meaning of It All

lecture II: "The Uncertainty of Values"
The Meaning of It All (1999)

Truth, Way, Question, Freedom

“[T]he American dream is still alive and well, thanks: Even the newest taxi driver stumbling over his English grammar knows he can truly become an American. But European Muslims can't become French or Dutch or Italian or German. Even if they qualify for a passport, they remain second-class citizens. On a good day. And they're supposed to take over the continent that's exported more death than any other?”

Ralph Peters (1952) American military officer, writer, pundit

Source: 2000s, Wars of Blood and Faith: The Conflicts That Will Shape the Twenty-First Century (2007), p. 334

Death, Dreams

“A merchant, it has been said very properly, is not necessarily the citizen of any particular country.”

Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

Source: (1776), Book III, Chapter IV, p. 456.

Country

“Mr McCain fought in Vietnam. I think that he has enough blood of peaceful citizens on his hands. It must be impossible for him to live without these disgusting scenes anymore. Mr McCain was captured and they kept him not just in prison, but in a pit for several years, Anyone [in his place] would go nuts.”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

Response to John McCain's tweet "Dear Vlad, The Arab Spring is coming to a neighbourhood near you." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/8958294/Vladimir-Putin-calls-John-McCain-nuts-in-outspoken-attack.html 2011 - 2015

Peace, Thinking

“I would hope that all educated citizens would fulfill this obligation — in politics, in Government, here in Nashville, here in this State, in the Peace Corps, in the Foreign Service, in the Government Service, in the Tennessee Valley, in the world. You will find the pressures greater than the pay. You may endure more public attacks than support. But you will have the unequaled satisfaction of knowing that your character and talent are contributing to the direction and success of this free society.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1963, Address at Vanderbilt University

World, Education, Peace, Hope

“The question of perpetual copyright is, in my judgement, entitled to the full and favorable consideration of the Congress of an enlightened republic. There would seem to be every reason for the equitable protection, without limit as to time, of the unquestioned property rights of its citizens.”

Florence Earle Coates (1850–1927) American writer and poet

Mrs. Coates on perpetual copyright. From The Literary World, 28 Oct 1899.

Question, Time

“At Athens and Athens alone, a new stamp of person was being born, neither baron nor yeoman, but a man of the city. A citizen.”

Steven Pressfield book Last of the Amazons

Father p. 87
Last of the Amazons (2002)

Personality

“Of the various executive abilities, no one excited more anxious concern than that of placing the interests of our fellow-citizens in the hands of honest men, with understanding sufficient for their stations. No duty is at the same time more difficult to fulfil. The knowledge of character possessed by a single individual is of necessity limited. To seek out the best through the whole Union, we must resort to the information which from the best of men, acting disinterestedly and with the purest motives, is sometimes incorrect.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to Elias Shipman and others of New Haven (12 July 1801). Paraphrased in John B. McMaster, History of the People of the United States (ii. 586): "One sentence will undoubtedly be remembered till our republic ceases to exist. 'No duty the Executive had to perform was so trying,' [Jefferson] observed, 'as to put the right man in the right place.'"
1800s, First Presidential Administration (1801–1805)

Men, Motivation, Understanding, Knowledge

“The thirteen Colonies were not unaware of the difficulties which these problems presented. We shall find a great deal of wisdom in the method by which they dealt with them. When they were finally separated from Great Britain, the allegiance of their citizens was not to the Nation, for there was none. It was to the States. For the conduct of the war there had been a voluntary confederacy loosely constructed and practically impotent. Continuing after peace was made, when the common peril which had been its chief motive no longer existed, it grew weaker and weaker. Each of the States could have insisted on an entirely separate and independent existence, having full authority over both their internal and external affairs, sovereign in every way. But such sovereignty would have been a vain and empty thing. It would have been unsupported by adequate resources either of property or population, without a real national spirit; ready to fall prey to foreign intrigue or foreign conquest. That kind of sovereignty meant but little. It had no substance in it. The people and their leaders naturally sought for a larger, more inspiring ideal. They realized that while to be a citizen of a State meant something, it meant a great deal more if that State were a part of a national union. The establishment of a Federal Constitution giving power and authority to create a real National Government did not in the end mean a detriment, but rather an increment to the sovereignty of the several States. Under the Constitution there was brought into being a new relationship, which did not detract from but added to the power and the position of each State. It is true that they surrendered the privilege of performing certain acts for themselves, like the regulation of commerce and the maintenance of foreign relations, but in becoming a part of the Union they received more than they gave.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Freedom and its Obligations (1924)

Wisdom, War, People, Peace

“We want to take into account the latest debates on the so-called Welfare State, to be found in the documents of the United Nations and of the European Union, in order to avoid sterile imitations and the most common dysfunction’s of this model: very high social expenditure, heavy-handed State control and an excessive bureaucracy, lack of efficiency in the distribution of resources, an excessive protectionism that engenders the dependency of the citizens, and the demobilization of social initiatives.”

Marc Forné Molné (1946) Andorran politician

At World Summit for Social Development, Copenhagen, Denmark, March 11 1995)

Dependency

“I sincerely pray for my country and for all of its citizens, even those who have made much effort to harass my family and I.”

Loujain al-Hathloul (1989) Saudi Arabian activist

A Clarification (March 24, 2016)

Family, Effort, Sincerity, Country

“We must foster in us the awareness that the actual laws are, on the whole, something limited and that there is always need of integration and correction, and this attention to possible changes must be kept especially in regard to more important things. Citizens often use the opposite method: they disobey the small laws, and they obey the important ones. They have not widened their spirit to look above all at these last ones, which at times are unjust impositions. Then disobedience to these becomes a witness.”

Aldo Capitini (1899–1968) Italian philosopher and political activist

‘In Remembrance of Aldo Capitini’
Hymn

Law, Change, Time

“[Israeli citizens who marry Palestinians need to move to] the other side.”

Reuven Rivlin (1939) Israeli politician, 10th President of Israel

Jerusalem Post http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/161578#.U5gR5PldXs9, 13 January 2012

“From the first I saw no chance of bettering the condition of the freedman until he should cease to be merely a freedman and should become a citizen.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1892), Part 2, Chapter 13: Vast Changes
1890s, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1892)

Chance

“Each of these smaller corporations… to which an Athenian citizen belonged, had… business of its own—money to spend, officers to appoint, rules to make—very similar to that which the state transacted on a larger scale. And it is not to be supposed that Athenians were at all ashamed to take part in such minor business, as English gentlemen are to sit on a vestry or a town council. On the contrary, a large part of the population left their private affairs for slaves to manage, and devoted themselves entirely to their public duties.”

James Gow (scholar) (1854–1923) scholar

p, 125
A Companion to School Classics (1888)

Money, Business, Parting

“Many of the criticisms of capitalism advanced by socialists were essentially correct. Capitalism is persistently at odds with values of equity, fairness, political equality among all citizens, and democracy.”

Robert A. Dahl (1915–2014) American political scientist

After the Revolution? (1970; 1990), Ch. 3 : Democracy and Markets

Democracy

“The Hindus saw clearly that if the arithmetic operations… were properly defined for negative numbers, these numbers could be employed to as good advantage as people had previously derived from positive numbers. …To people to whom the word number had always meant positive whole numbers and positive fractions, the very idea that there could be other numbers came hard. For many centuries negative numbers were either rejected or treated as second-class citizens.
What was especially difficult for mathematicians to swallow was that negative numbers could be acceptable roots of equations.”

Morris Kline (1908–1992) American mathematician

Source: Mathematics and the Physical World (1959), p. 51.

People, Idea

“Overconsumption by US citizens, US buy-outs of foreign companies and dollars the Pentagon spends abroad all end up in foreign central banks. These governments face a hard choice: either recycle the dollars back to America by buying US Treasury bonds or let the “free market” force up their currencies relative to the dollar – thereby pricing their exports out of world markets, creating domestic unemployment and business failures. US-style free markets hook them into a system that forces them to accept unlimited dollars. Now they want out. … The US is the world’s largest debtor, yet has avoided the pain of “structural adjustments” imposed on other debtor nations. US interest rate and tax reductions in the face of exploding trade and budget deficits are seen as the height of hypocrisy in view of the austerity programmes that Washington has forced on other countries via the International Monetary Fund and other vehicles.”

Michael Hudson (economist) (1939) American economist

Washington cannot call all the shots http://michael-hudson.com/2009/06/washington-cannot-call-all-the-shots/ (June 14, 2009) Michael-Hudson.com, 1998-

Pain, World, Failure, Business

“This is the information war we are now engaged in. Governments are seeking to militarise cyberspace while citizens fight for the right to communicate and assemble freely online without state surveillance.”

Heather Brooke (1970) American journalist

The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/20/we-should-all-be-hactivists "We should all be hacktivists now", Column in the Guardian, 20 April 2012. Attributed, In the Media

War, Communication, Fight

“Democracy destroys itself because it abuses its right to freedom and equality. Because it teaches its citizens to consider audacity as a right, lawlessness as a freedom, abrasive speech as equality, and anarchy as progress.”

Isocrates (-436–-338 BC) ancient greek rhetorician

A falsified quote invented during the 2010 financial crisis. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Isoc.+7+20&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0144 Isocrates' actual, more nuanced, quote runs as follows: Those who directed the state in the time of Solon and Cleisthenes did not establish a polity which … trained the citizens in such fashion that they looked upon insolence as democracy, lawlessness as liberty, impudence of speech as equality, and licence to do what they pleased as happiness, but rather a polity which detested and punished such men and by so doing made all the citizens better and wiser. Areopagiticus, 7.20 (Norlin) Misattributed

Democracy, Freedom

“By breaking up the great wooden navies of Europe, Ericsson helped to place us more on an equality with them as a naval power, and the distance is not so great between us but that we may hope to overtake them when the people of this country demand a navy commensurate with our national importance, and when the exigencies of politics can no longer prevent proper measures being taken for the defense of the nation, which should at all times be in a position to protect its citizens at home and abroad.”

David Dixon Porter (1813–1891) United States Navy admiral

Source: 1880s, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War (1885), p. 63

People, Hope, Home, Time

“Every American should take note of those candidates who stand with the economic interests of America’s citizens, and who stand with the Rule of Law, by rejecting Amnesty in all its forms. It is wrong when Democrats seek to demean the intrinsic value of American citizenship by importing the Third World to replace the millions of voters their redistributionist policies and racial grievance politics have driven away. It is also wrong when Republican leadership conveniently chooses to waive the application of the law to guarantee a supply of unskilled and low-cost workers for their corporate benefactors.”

Steve King (1949) US Representative for Iowa

Rep. Steve King: ‘DACA’ – ‘Delivering Amnesty to Central Americans’ http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/09/26/exclusive-rep-steve-king-daca-delivering-amnesty-central-americans/ (September 26, 2017)

World, Law

“With every citizen watching for an opportunity to strike a blow for freedom, the force of Communism can be halted, smothered, and then eliminated. This is our task. Without our tolerance and help the Communist empire would never have become the second strongest power in the earth. Now we have the job of dismantling it.”

W. Cleon Skousen book The Naked Communist

The Naked Communist (1958)

Communication, Freedom, Help

“I am so completely convinced of the importance of this cause, as it is related to the solution of a problem no patriotic citizen should neglect, that I look upon every attempt to stimulate popular interest and activity in its behalf as a duty of citizenship.”

Grover Cleveland (1837–1908) 22nd and 24th president of the United States

Speech in New York (12 February 1904), as quoted in speech by Edward de Veaux Morrell https://cdn.loc.gov/service/rbc/lcrbmrp/t2609/t2609.pdf (April 1904)

Problem

“I feel the deepest affliction at the news we have just received at the loss of our dear and inestimable friend Laurens. His career of virtue is at end. How strangely are human affairs conducted, that so many excellent qualities could not ensure a more happy fate! The world will feel the loss of a man who has left few like him behind; and America, of a citizen whose heart realized that patriotism of which others only talk. I feel the loss of a friend whom I truly and most tenderly loved, and one of a very small number.”

Alexander Hamilton (1757–1804) Founding Father of the United States

Letter to Nathanael Greene (12 October 1782), as quoted in Sketches of the Life and Correspondence of Nathanael Greene http://books.google.com/books?id=pLZSAAAAcAAJ&source=gbs_navlinks_s, page 342

Love, Fate, World, Feeling