Citizenry Quotes - Page 2

• A politician is a fellow who will lay down your life for his country.

  Texas Guinan

  Funny, Life, Country

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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  It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union.... Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less

  Susan B. Anthony

  Strong Women, Equality, White

  Motto of The Revolution (newspaper), 8 Jan. 1868

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• A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.

  Edward R. Murrow

  Sheep, Government, Political

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• The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.

  H. L. Mencken

  Education, Learning, Liberty

  The American Mercury Magazine, April 24, 1924.

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• No matter the specific techniques involved, historically mass surveillance has had several constant attributes. Initially, it is always the country’s dissidents and marginalized who bear the brunt of the surveillance, leading those who support the government or are merely apathetic to mistakenly believe they are immune. And history shows that the mere existence of a mass surveillance apparatus, regardless of how it is used, is in itself sufficient to stifle dissent. A citizenry that is aware of always being watched quickly becomes a compliant and fearful one.

  Glenn Greenwald

  Country, Believe, Government

  Glenn Greenwald (2014). “No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA and the Surveillance State”, p.10, Penguin UK

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• No country can possibly move ahead, no free society can possibly be sustained, unless it has an educated citizenry whose qualities of mind and heart permit it to take part in the complicated and increasingly sophisticated decisions that pour not only upon the President and upon the Congress, but upon all the citizens who exercise the ultimate power.

  John F. Kennedy

  Country, Moving, Heart

  Kennedy, John F. (1964). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1963”, p.446, Best Books on

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• The police of a state should never be stronger or better armed than the citizenry. An armed citizenry, willing to fight, is the foundation of civil freedom. That's a personal evaluation, of course.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Fighting, Police, Stronger

  Robert A. Heinlein (1960). “Beyond This Horizon”, Roc

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• Since an informed citizenry is the basis for a healthy democracy, independent, non-corporate media are more crucial today than ever before

  Dahr Jamail

  Independent, Media, Healthy

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• One reason the United States finds itself at the edge of a foreign policy disaster is its underinformed citizenry, a key weakness in democracy.

  Stefan Halper

  Peace, War, Keys

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• History shows that the mere existence of a mass surveillance apparatus, regardless of how it is used, is in itself sufficient to stifle dissent. A citizenry that is aware of always being watched quickly becomes a compliant and fearful one.

  Glenn Greenwald

  Political, Surveillance, Used

  Glenn Greenwald (2014). “No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA and the Surveillance State”, p.10, Penguin UK

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• In this time when a citizenry applauds the liberation of a country as it lives in fear of its own freedom, when people all over the country fear reprisal if they use their right to free speech, it is time to get angry. It is time to get fierce.

  Tim Robbins

  Country, People, Speech

  "A Chill Wind is Blowing in This Nation". Tim Robbins' speech to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., archive.commondreams.org. April 15, 2003.

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• The aspirations of democracy are based on the notion of an informed citizenry, capable of making wise decisions. The choices we are asked to make become increasingly complex. They require the longer-term thinking and greater tolerance for ambiguity that science fosters. The new economy is predicated on a continuous pipeline of scientific and technological innovation. It can not exist without workers and consumers who are mathematically and scientifically literate.

  Ann Druyan

  Wise, Thinking, Decision

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• Rome tolerated every abominable practice, embraced every foul idea in the name of freedom and the rights of the common man. Citizens no longer carried on deviant behavior in private, but pridefully displayed it in public. It was those with moral values who could no longer freely walk in a public park without having to witness a revolting display. What happened to the public censors who protected the majority of citizenry from moral decadence? Did freedom have to mean abolishing common decency? Did freedom mean anyone could do anything they wanted anytime they wanted, without consequences?

  Francine Rivers

  Mean, Men, Rights

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• I stayed only two days in the capital. I was welcomed by a cheering citizenry, who threw flowers at my head. It was disconcerting to think I could have put almost any young man in my retinue on a white horse and they would have thrown flowers at him instead. It was not me they cared about, only what I meant to them: a cessation of hostilities, a chance for prosperity, food on the table.

  Megan Whalen Turner

  Horse, Cheer, Flower

  Megan Whalen Turner (2010). “A Conspiracy of Kings”, Greenwillow

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• Where utopianism is advanced through gradualism rather than revolution, albeit steady and persistent as in democratic societies, it can deceive and disarm an unsuspecting population, which is largely content and passive. It is sold as reforming and improving the existing society's imperfections and weaknesses without imperiling its basic nature. Under these conditions, it is mostly ignored, dismissed, or tolerated by much of the citizenry and celebrated by some. Transformation is deemed innocuous, well-intentioned, and perhaps constructive but not a dangerous trespass on fundamental liberties.

  Mark Levin

  Imperfection, Liberty, Weakness

  Mark R. Levin (2012). “Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America”, p.7, Simon and Schuster

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• The fact throughout history is that whenever government dominates the economic affairs of its citizenry, a free society is eroded, then destroyed, and a minority government ensues. Personal liberty without economic liberty is an absolute contradiction; the one cannot exist without the other.

  William E. Simon

  Government, Liberty, Minorities

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• [The] erroneous assumption is to the effect that the aim of public education is to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence, and so make them fit to discharge the duties of citizenship in an enlightened and independent manner. Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardised citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.

  H. L. Mencken

  Knowledge, Independent, Science

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• [I am enthusiastic about journalism because] it's a craft that can ... galvanize an often complacent citizenry, and make a difference.

  Katie Couric

  Differences, Making A Difference, Crafts

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• There is nothing puzzling ... about America's gratuitously aggressive foreign policy or about the oligarchs' successful efforts to drag the Republic into five wars. What an aggressive foreign policy accomplishes by slow degrees, a state of war accomplishes in a trice. Overnight [war] kills reform, overnight it transforms insurgents into traitors and the Republic into an imperiled realm. Overnight it strangles free politics, distracts and overawes the citizenry. Overnight it blasts public hope.

  Walter Karp

  War, Successful, America

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• Public Broadcasting System an entity designed to create an informed citizenry rather than to deliver consumers to advertisers.

  Pat Mitchell

  Media, Television, Broadcasting

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• Democracy, taken in its narrower, purely political, sense, suffers from the fact that those in economic and political power possess the means for molding public opinion to serve their own class interests. The democratic form of government in itself does not automatically solve problems; it offers, however, a useful framework for their solution. Everything depends ultimately on the political and moral qualities of the citizenry.

  Albert Einstein

  Taken, Mean, Class

  Albert Einstein (2017). “Einstein on Peace”, p.731, Pickle Partners Publishing

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• A citizenry that is aware of always being watched quickly becomes a compliant and fearful one.

  Glenn Greenwald

  Fearful

  Glenn Greenwald (2014). “No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State”, p.3, Metropolitan Books

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• Today's political leaders demonstrate their low opinion of the public with every social law they pass. They believe that, if given the right to chose, the citizenry will probably make the wrong choice. Legislators do not think any more in terms of persuading people; they feel the need to force their agenda on the public at the point of a bayonet and the barrel of a gun, in the name of the IRS, the SEC, the FDA, the DEA, the EPA, or a multitude of other ABCs of government authority.

  Mark Skousen

  Believe, Thinking, Gun

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• A system in which legal police shootings of unarmed civilians are a common occurrence is a system that has some serious flaws. In this case, the drawback is a straightforward consequence of America's approach to firearms. A well-armed citizenry required an even-better-armed constabulary. Widespread gun ownership creates a systematic climate of fear on the part of the police. The result is a quantity of police shootings that, regardless of the facts of any particular case, is just staggeringly high. Young black men, in particular, are paying the price for America's gun culture.

  Matthew Yglesias

  Gun, Men, America

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• Today we are at a crossroads. The technology is available for two great options: The massive surveillance state, or the renewed freedom of a deeply-involved citizenry thinking independently and holding the government to the highest standards.

  Oliver DeMille

  Technology, Thinking, Surveillance State

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