Citizenship Quotes

“Civil society”

“Before Man made us citizens, great Nature made us men.”

“citizenship”

“Wikipedia: Citizenship”

“In time of trouble we are citizens. Shall we be citizens in war, and aliens in peace? Would that be just?”

“The first requisite of a good citizen in this Republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his weight”

“Good roads, good schools and good churches are a sure sign of the best citizenship produced by a free republic. How about our roads?”

“Bearing the discomfiture and cost of a prosecution for crime even by an innocent person is one of the painful obligations of citizenship.”

“Citizenship is no light trifle to be jeopardized any moment Congress decides to do so under the name of one of its general or implied grants of power.”

“Our government was designed to be run by informed, engaged citizens. We have an incredibly dangerous form of government for people who don't know how it works.”

“It is not the function of the government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.”

“The power of citizenship as a shield against oppression was widely known from the example of Paul's Roman citizenship, which sent the centurion scurrying to his higher-ups with the message: "Take heed what thou doest: for this man is a Roman".”

“What does naturalization give? All that belongs to the character of a British Subject. What does it take away? All that does not appertain to that character. It makes the party ipso facto a British Subject, to all intents and purposes.”

“Many things claimed as uniquely American, a devotion to individual freedom, for example, or social opportunity, exist in other countries. But birthright citizenship does make the United States unique in the developed world. No European nation recognizes the principle.”

“This is not a contest between persons. The humblest citizen in all the land, when clad in the armor of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of error. I come to speak to you in defence of a cause as holy as the cause of liberty—the cause of humanity.”

“The effects of the late civil strife have been to free the slave and make him a citizen. Yet he is not possessed of the civil rights which citizenship should carry with it. This is wrong, and should be corrected. To this correction I stand committed, so far as Executive influence can avail.”

“If citizenship is a matter of shared beliefs, then I believe in the democracy of species. If citizenship means an oath of loyalty to a leader, then I choose the leader of the trees. If good citizens agree to uphold the laws of the nation, then I choose natural law, the law of reciprocity, of regeneration, of mutual flourishing.”

“Is not true that, in this world, before being paper citizens we are our mother's sons in the flesh. What is a human being in reality? To start from the beginning: What are peoples, cultures and what are then custom-houses, parliaments and states? Everybody carries a nursery rhyme in the soul, but nobody carries a passport or a custom-house in the soul.”

“The concept of world citizenship implies that all peoples, whatever their age, whatever their [sex], whatever their race, whatever their religion, belong equally to one great city—that of Planet Earth. Although we may differ in many respects, each of us is deserving of the respect of our brother and sister citizens. For better or for worse, the actions of one can affect the actions of others.”

“It may be laid down, as a primary position, and the basis of our system, that every citizen who enjoys the protection of a free government, owes not only a proportion of his property, but even of his personal services to the defence of it, and consequently that the Citizens of America (with a few legal and official exceptions) from 18 to 50 Years of Age should be borne on the Militia Rolls, provided with uniform Arms, and so far accustomed to the use of them, that the Total strength of the Country might be called forth at Short Notice on any very interesting Emergency.”