Joseph R. Biden Jr. Quotes

The people's government has come to be less and less the people's business.

I think it's the height of patriotism to continue to exercise your right as a citizen and to hold your government to account. Isn't that what the very essence of democracy is about?

Do we have the right to understand the world we live in? The right to all the information regarding why our governments are making the decisions that they are?

Be aware and hold the government accountable.

We in the press have a special role since there is no other institution in our society that can hold the President accountable. I do believe that our democracy can endure and prevail only if the American people are informed.

There is a power in public opinion in this country - and I thank God for it: for it is the most honest and best of all powers - which will not tolerate an incompetent or unworthy man to hold in his weak or wicked hands the lives and fortunes of his fellow-citizens.

Openness, transparency - these are among the few weapons the citizenry has to protect itself from the powerful and the corrupt... and that is the best thing that WikiLeaks has done.

No citizen is apolitical; as a citizen, by definition, has to take interest in public affairs.

But in the end our government usually - not unfailingly - is responsive to the people; and usually - not always - will try to do what is right.

The People have a right to the Truth as they have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

A government of, by and for the people is obligated to conduct the nation's business in a manner that respects dissent.

I begin to feel like most Americans don't understand the First Amendment, don't understand the idea of freedom of speech, and don't understand that it's the responsibility of the citizen to speak out.

All Americans value the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press, and I believe this is essential for our continued way of life. But with this freedom comes responsibility. That responsibility has been abdicated here by some in the media and some in the government.

We create our own government. We are responsible for its beauty and for its ugliness. We are responsible for its glories and for its failures and, most important, we are responsible for amending those failures no matter who are their most immediate architects.

The Senate floor is and always has been the great arena of our democracy. I spent eight years in my younger life as a boxer, and sometimes when I enter the chamber, I think, 'This is the ring. The American people can see us here and listen to our arguments. This is where the fights matter.'

My dream of politics all my life has been that it is the common business, that it is something we owe to each other to understand and discuss with absolute frankness.

The effective functioning of our constitutional democracy depends upon the participation in public life of a citizenry that is well informed

The veil of secrecy must be lifted and the attempted dumbing down of the Australian people by restricting their right to know must be fought.

The people have a right to know—no, a duty to know—what the army is doing in our name.

A decent and manly examination of the acts of Government should be not only tolerated but encouraged.

The only way we can keep our freedom is to work at it. Not some of us. All of us. Not some of the time, but all of the time. So if you value your citizenship and you want to keep it for yourself and your children and their children, give it your faith, your belief, and give it your active support in civic affairs.

Let us give our Republic not the best possible laws but the best which they will bear.

Misrepresentation of public Measures is easily overthrown, by representing public Measures truly; when they are honest, they ought to be publicly known, that they may be publicly commended, but if they are knavish or pernicious, they ought to be publicly exposed, in order to be publicly detested.

Usually the public is better off with more information than less. That includes information the government would like to keep quiet.

I believe that the American People have a right to know what was done in their name..