Citizens

Famous quotes containing the word citizens:

    What ails it, intrinsically, is a dearth of intellectual audacity and of aesthetic passion. Running through it, and characterizing the work of almost every man and woman producing it, there is an unescapable suggestion of the old Puritan suspicion of the fine arts as such—of the doctrine that they offer fit asylum for good citizens only when some ulterior and superior purpose is carried into them.
    —H.L. (Henry Lewis)

    ... a nation to be strong, must be united; to be united, must be equal in condition; to be equal in condition, must be similar in habits and feeling; to be similar in habits and feeling, must be raised in national institutions as the children of a common family, and citizens of a common country.
    Frances Wright (1795–1852)

    A state that denies its citizens their basic rights becomes a danger to its neighbors as well: internal arbitrary rule will be reflected in arbitrary external relations. The suppression of public opinion, the abolition of public competition for power and its public exercise opens the way for the state power to arm itself in any way it sees fit.... A state that does not hesitate to lie to its own people will not hesitate to lie to other states.
    Václav Havel (b. 1936)