Citizen Responsibility Quotes

Every nation has the government it deserves. Toute nation a le government qu'elle merite.

Every country has the government it deserves.

In a democracy, people usually get the kind of government they deserve, and they deserve what they get.

We need a nation of minutemen – citizens who are not only prepared to take up arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as a basic purpose of their daily life, and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom.

People get the government their behavior deserves. People deserve better than that.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty; power is ever stealing from the many to the few.

...no country can be well governed unless its citizens as a body keep religiously before their minds that they are the guardians of the law and that the law officers are only the machinery for its execution, nothing more.

Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state has become lawless or corrupt. And a citizen who barters with such a state shares in its corruption and lawlessness.

Not only do we have a right to know, we have a duty to know what our Government is doing in our name.

We, the people, are the boss, and we will get the kind of political leadership, be it good or bad, that we demand and deserve.

Our political leaders have great responsibilities, but as with many situations in life, people often rise or fall to meet your expectations. Our responsibility as citizens is to expect our leaders to lead and to give them enough support so that they may do so.

Every citizen who stops smoking, or loses a few pounds, or starts managing his chronic disease with real diligence, is caulking a crack for the benefit of us all.

Our fate as a nation and our future as a people rest not upon one citizen but upon all citizens.

Love your country, but never trust its government.

We as citizens should hold our government accountable for word and deed.

Nations crumble from within when the citizenry asks of government those things which the citizenry might better provide for itself.

Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy, the whores are us.

A popular feel for scientific endeavors should, if possible, be restored given the needs of the twenty-first century. This does not mean that every literature major should take a watered-down physics course or that a corporate lawyer should stay abreast of quantum mechanics. Rather, it means that an appreciation for the methods of science is a useful asset for a responsible citizenry. What science teaches us, very significantly, is the correlation between factual evidence and general theories, something well illustrated in Einstein's life.

The weakling and the coward are out of place in a strong and free community. In a republic like ours the governing class is composed of the strong men who take the trouble to do the work of government; and if you are too timid or too fastidious or too careless to do your part in this work, then you forfeit your right to be considered one of the governing and you become one of the governed insteadone of the driven cattle of the political arena.

It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the Government from falling into error.

Government works less efficiently when it begins to grow out of control and takes on more and more of the responsibilities that belong to the citizens.

A true patriot does not confuse government with country. A patriot's loyalty is to his country, and loyalty to country requires holding government accountable.

Every good citizen makes his country's honor his own, and cherishes it not only as precious but as sacred. He is willing to risk his life in its defense and its conscious that he gains protection while he gives it.

Political action is the highest responsibility of a citizen.

Nothing will ruin the country if the people themselves will' undertake its safety, and nothing can save it, if they leave that safety in any hands but their own.