Citizens Quotes - Page 28

• When a private citizen is robbed, a worthy man is deprived of the fruits of his industry and thrift; when the government is robbed, the worst that happens is that certain rogues and loafers have less money to play with than they had before.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Play, Rogues

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.147, Vintage

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• The average citizen expresses pride in the American Bill of Rights and then seeks to protect his real estate by restrictive covenants.

  Harry Allen Overstreet

  Real, Pride, Rights

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• Sir Alec Douglas-Home, when he was British Foreign Secretary, said he received the following telegram from an irate citizen: "To hell with you. Offensive letter follows."

  William Safire

  Home, Letters, Offensive

  William Safire (2008). “Safire's Political Dictionary”, p.313, Oxford University Press

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• Yet the civilians have always respected the natural right of a citizen to dispose of his life . . .

  Edward Gibbon

  Natural, Civilians

  Edward Gibbon, Henry Hart Milman, Guizot (M., François), Sir William Smith (1862). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.326

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• Citizens, the priority now is to recover trust between the Egyptian - amongst the Egyptians and to have trust and confidence in our economy and international reputation and the fact that the change that we have embarked on will carry on and there's no going back to the old days.

  Hosni Mubarak

  Priorities, Facts, Reputation

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• When the citizens of a nation will no longer volunteer to defend it, then it is probably not worth saving. No nation has the right to survive with conscript troops, and in the long run, no nation ever has.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Running, Long, Volunteer

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• Within the market society each serves all his fellow citizens and each is served by them. It is a system of mutual exchange of services and commodities, a mutual giving, and receiving.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Giving, Receiving, Commodity

  Ludwig Von Mises (1985). “Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War”, Libertarian Press

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• The bigger the government, the less the citizens do for one another. If the state will take care of me and my neighbors, why should I? This is why Western Europeans, people who have lived in welfare states far longer than Americans have, give less to charity and volunteer less time to others than do Americans of the same socioeconomic status.

  Dennis Prager

  Government, Volunteer, Giving

  Dennis Prager (2012). “Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph”, p.40, Harper Collins

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• If government goes beyond securing liberty and instead violates it through regulation, redistribution, and planning, then citizens are victims of legal plunder.

  Richard Ebeling

  Government, Liberty, Regulation

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• The decline and fall of a civilization is barely noticed by most of its citizens.

  James Cook

  Fall, Civilization, Decline

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• The Obama administration seems to be following what might be called 'the Detroit pattern increasing taxes, harassing businesses, and pandering to unions. In the short run, it got mayors re-elected. In the long-run, it reduced Detroit from a thriving city to an economic disaster area, whose population was cut in half, as its most productive citizens fled.

  Thomas Sowell

  Running, Cutting, Cities

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• Anything that shifts power from the individual judgment of free citizens to government is a bad thing.

  Mark Steyn

  Government, Judgment, Individual

  Mark Steyn (2006). “America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It”, p.187, Regnery Publishing

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• But there is nothing idealized or romantic about the difference between a society whose arrangements roughly serve all its citizens (something otherwise known as social justice) and one whose institutions have been converted into a stupendous fraud. That can be the difference between democracy and plutocracy.

  Bill Moyers

  Differences, Justice, Democracy

  "The Great American Class War" by Bill Moyers, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 12, 2013.

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• Democracy does not require perfect equality, but it does require that citizens share in a common life.

  Michael Sandel

  Perfect, Democracy, Doe

  Michael J. Sandel (2012). “What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets”, p.225, Macmillan

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• Citizens as conceived by governments are persons who admire the status quo and are prepared to exert themselves for its preservation. Oddly enough, while all governments aim at producing men of this type to the exclusion of all other types, their heroes in the past are of exactly the sort that they aim at preventing in the present. Americans admire George Washington and Jefferson, but imprison those who share their political opinions.

  Bertrand Russell

  Hero, Men, Past

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “Education and the Social Order”, p.11, Routledge

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• The same government that requires a taxpaying citizen to document every statement on his tax return decrees that questioning a welfare applicant demeans and humiliates him.

  Ronald Reagan

  Government, Return, Welfare

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• Liberals fostered the subsidies that have converted so many citizens to helplessness. They have made high taxes and big government a way of life. They have corrupted the politicians into believing that in order to be elected to office, they must dispense benefits.

  James Cook

  Believe, Government, Order

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• If citizens wish to retain their liberty, they cannot assume that those who seek power over them are honest. Skepticism of government is one of the most important-and most forgotten-bulwarks of freedom.

  James Bovard

  Government, Wish, Important

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• The income tax has spawned an intrusive bureaucracy, creating so much complexity and red tape that millions of ordinary citizens have to go get some accountant to fill out the forms for them - and then sign under penalty of perjury that it was done right. If you knew how to do it right, you wouldn't have to go to somebody else to have it done, would you?

  Thomas Sowell

  Creating, Ordinary, Income

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• For Al Gore and Paul Ehrlich and Co., whatever the problem, the solution is always the same. Whether it's global cooling, global warming, or overpopulation, we need bigger government, more regulation, higher taxes, and a massive transfer of power from the citizens to some unelected self-perpetuating crisis lobby.

  Mark Steyn

  Government, Self, Needs

  Mark Steyn (2006). “America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It”, p.29, Regnery Publishing

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• Are you really questioning the wisdom of central planning? Because the happy citizens of Cuba and North Korea beg to differ.

  Jonathan Gruber

  Korea, Cuba, Planning

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• O citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.

  Horace

  Practice, Firsts, Wealth

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• Sometimes, when asked the what-do-you-do question, it occurs to me to say that I work for the government. I have a government job, essential to national security. I AM A CITIZEN. Like the Supreme Court judges, my job is for life, and the well-being of my country depends on me. It seems fair to think that I should be held accountable for my record in the same way I expect accountability from those who seek elected office. I would like to be able to say that I can stand on my record and am proud of it.

  Robert Fulghum

  Country, Jobs, Thinking

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• The information society should serve all of its citizens, not only the technically sophisticated and economically privileged.

  Bill Gates

  Information, Sophisticated, Should

  Bill Gates, Nathan Myhrvold, Peter Rinearson (1996). “The Road Ahead”, Wheeler Pub Incorporated

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• Character, not passion keeps marriages together long enough to do their work of raising children into mature, responsible, productive citizens.

  Frank Pittman

  Children, Passion, Character

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