Richard Dreyfuss Quotes

I had become increasingly concerned in recent years about the lack of civics education in our nation's schools. In recent years, the schools have stopped teaching it. And it's unfortunate.

It is absolutely the case that much needs to be done to invigorate and elevate the quality of civic learning in America

A popular society must provide a school for citizens where through the best, most accessible and direct means they may be educated in the pure doctrine of Patriotism.

I begin to feel like I was in the last generation of Americans who took a civics class.

Civic education and civic responsibility should be taught in elementary school.

Even civics classes have almost disappeared from the schools. So things have not gotten any better.

We are not merely historians but also and always citizens.

I grew up in San Francisco. And so I'm informed in a certain kind of way about, you know, believing in democracy and believing in America. And I'm a very ardent patriot.

If they had taught a class on how to be the kind of citizen Dick Cheney worries about, I would have finished high school.

Voting is a civic sacrament - the highest responsibility we have as Americans.

Half the states have stopped making civics and government a requirement for high school. Half.

On the diffusion of education among the people rest the preservation and perpetuation of our free institutions.

The role we can play every day, if we try, is to take the whole experience of every day and shape it to involve American man. It is our job to interest him in his community and to give his ideas the excitement they should have.

To place and power all public spirit tends, In place and power all public spirit ends; Like hardy plants, that love the air and sky, When out, 'twill thrive—but taken in, 'twill die!

How shall those who practice election frauds recover that respect for the sanctity of the ballot which is the first condition and obligation of good citizenship? The man who has come to regard the ballot box as a juggler's hat has renounced his allegiance.

I rejoice in having so favorable an opportunity of felicitating the State of Rhode Island on the co-operation I am sure to find in the measures adopted by the guardians of literature in this place, for improving the morals of the rising generation, and inculcating upon their minds principles peculiarly calculated for the preservation of our rights and liberties. You may rely on whatever protection I may be able to afford in so important an object as the education of our youth.

I think public life for me has a slightly didactic role, OK.

Voting is how we participate in a civic society - be it for president, be it for a municipal election. It's the way we teach our children - in school elections - how to be citizens, and the importance of their voice.

Essentially, social education is moral education, and moral education is preparation for citizenship... When Jefferson and others advocated public education, it was to prepare for citizenship in a new, constitutional, democratic society.

I believe that when you provide information to people, they become less fearful and they will engage more in their democracy if they are empowered with information.

Let's summon the courage to insist on a minimal level of civic knowledge for the citizens empowered to decide our fate.

Cultivating a thoughtful citizenry is a project for educators, parents, and religious and community leaders as much as tech leaders.

The Constitution is worth saving, the rule of law is worth saving, democracy is worth saving, but these things can and will be lost if everyone waits around for someone else.

The Athenians are right to accept advice from anyone, since it is incumbent on everyone to share in that sort of excellence, or else there can be no city at all.

It is the State which educates its citizens in civic virtue, gives them a consciousness of their mission and welds them into unity.