Civic Duty Quotes

“Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
― John F. Kennedy

“A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“The feeling of that moment defined earthly rapture for James Ed. Before his state of mind could enjoy a full minute of the ultimate feeling, the six-year-old memory intervened. “Goddamn that memory!” he thought.”
― Shafter Bailey, James Ed Hoskins and the One-Room Schoolhouse: The Unprosecuted Crime Against Children

“Let every man shovel out his own snow, and the whole city will be passable," said Gamache. Seeing Beauvoir's puzzled expression he added, "Emerson."

"Lake and Palmer?"

"Ralph and Waldo.”
― Louise Penny, A Fatal Grace

“Where are our Men of abilities? Why do they not come forth to save their Country?”
― George Washington

“The job facing American voters… in the days and years to come is to determine which hearts, minds and souls command those qualities best suited to unify a country rather than further divide it, to heal the wounds of a nation as opposed to aggravate its injuries, and to secure for the next generation a legacy of choices based on informed awareness rather than one of reactions based on unknowing fear.”
― Aberjhani, Illuminated Corners: Collected Essays and Articles Volume I.

“Discourse and critical thinking are essential tools when it comes to securing progress in a democratic society. But in the end, unity and engaged participation are what make it happen.”
― Aberjhani, Splendid Literarium: A Treasury of Stories, Aphorisms, Poems, and Essays

“It can be difficult to speak truth to power. Circumstances, however, have made doing so increasingly necessary.”
― Aberjhani, Splendid Literarium: A Treasury of Stories, Aphorisms, Poems, and Essays

“Patriotism is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.”
― Adlai E. Stevenson II

“Things are always changing ... It's true, some of the worst things keep repeating themselves, but things do change. And as citizens, we can do our part to keep things moving in the right direction.”
― Charmaine Wilkerson, Good Dirt

“It is relatively easy to point fingers at political figures whose leadership tactics resulted in diminished optimism and increased despair during a time when millions of souls were starving for the exact opposite. It is not so easy to ask how one may have contributed to the creation and maintenance of the culture of disregard and discord which helped spawn the tragedy in the first place.”
― Aberjhani, Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind : Adventures & Misadventures in Literary Savannah

“Let me say at once that I am no advocate for a foolish cosmopolitanism. I believe that a man must be a good patriot before he can be, and as the only possible way of being, a good citizen of the world. Experience teaches us that the average man who protests that his international feeling swamps his national feeling, that he does not care for his country because he cares so much for mankind, in actual practice proves himself the foe of mankind; that the man who says that he does not care to be a citizen of any one country, because he is the citizen of the world, is in fact usually an exceedingly undesirable citizen of whatever corner of the world he happens at the moment to be in. In the dim future all moral needs and moral standards may change; but at present, if a man can view his own country and all other countries from the same level with tepid indifference, it is wise to distrust him, just as it is wise to distrust the man who can take the same dispassionate view of his wife and mother. However broad and deep a man’s sympathies, however intense his activities, he need have no fear that they will be cramped by love of his native land.

Now, this does not mean in the least that a man should not wish to do good outside of his native land. On the contrary, just as I think that the man who loves his family is more apt to be a good neighbor than the man who does not, so I think that the most useful member of the family of nations is normally a strongly patriotic nation. So far from patriotism being inconsistent with a proper regard for the rights of other nations, I hold that the true patriot, who is as jealous of national honor as a gentleman of his own honor, will be careful to see that the nations neither inflect nor suffer wrong, just as a gentleman scorns equally to wrong others or to suffer others to wrong him. I do not for one moment admit that a man should act deceitfully as a public servant in his dealing with other nations, any more than he should act deceitfully in his dealings as a private citizen with other private citizens. I do not for one moment admit that a nation should treat other nations in a different spirit from that in which an honorable man would treat other men.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“To lift the world is a labor of love,
Still it strikes strain on mind at times.
That's where reformer stands out in crowd,
No strain clouds long a mission-driven mind.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Insan Himalayanoğlu: It's Time to Defect

“Seek yourself in the joy of neighbors,
You shall know the meaning of justice.
Seek yourself in smiles of the world,
You shall emerge as antidote to malice.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Yüz Şiirlerin Yüzüğü (Ring of 100 Poems, Bilingual Edition): 100 Turkish Poems with Translations

“Keep struggling, o brave soldier - keep struggling till politicians become an extinct species and politics an extinct profession.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tum Dunya Tek Millet: Greatest Country on Earth is Earth

“Keep struggling, o brave soldier - keep struggling till politicians become an extinct species and politics an extinct profession. The mission is, not to replace old world mindlessness with new world mindlessness, but to put an end to all forms of brainless authoritarianism selected randomly on the basis of charisma and popularity by hysterical whim.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tum Dunya Tek Millet: Greatest Country on Earth is Earth

“Human nerves are the life-circuit of society.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Himalayan Sonneteer: 100 Sonnets of Unsubmission

“We cannot stand accountable without offending a few pricks.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Himalayan Sonneteer: 100 Sonnets of Unsubmission

“Beyond the Nature of Truth (The Sonnet)

Do you realize how serious the situation is,
Are you aware of the lives ruined by cruelty?
Because if you stay aloof in your cloud castle,
All talk of humanity is but a tale of fantasy.

Can you tell the real from the unreal,
Can you tell facts from fantasy?
I am not talkin' in terms of neuroscience,
I am askin' you as a human, of human responsibility.

We can argue about the nature of truth all we want,
But that won't alleviate the suffering of society.
So the question is, do you know the worth of life,
How far will you go to preserve another's serenity!

Does human welfare overpower your insecurity?
Or is the self still separate from society?”
― Abhijit Naskar, Himalayan Sonneteer: 100 Sonnets of Unsubmission

“Get so drunk with incorruptibility,
you emerge a walking Wardencliffe.
Get so drunk with accountability,
no Rorschach can analyze your spirit.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Divine Refugee

“Somnolence leads to obsolescence, obsolescence leads to extinction.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Brit Actually: Nursery Rhymes of Reparations

“Proof of life is in standing guard.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Humanitarian Dictator

“Silence isn’t neutral—it’s betrayal. When politicians, community leaders, and ordinary citizens ignore, allow, or cheer on lies, they aren’t just complicit. They’re worse than the liars themselves. Stand up. Speak out.”
― George Stamatis

“At its heart, civility is the disposition of those who understand that we live together to flourish together—that the wellbeing of our neighbor is bound to our own, and that we have a duty to one another and to the common good.”
― Diane Kalen-Sukra, Save Your City: How Toxic Culture Kills Community & What to Do About It

“Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses.”
― Juvenal, The Satires of Juvenal

“I have a rule of thumb when it comes to assessments: if you have to cook the books to make your argument, if you have to avoid inconvenient truths or manufacture others, it may be time to reconsider your position.”
― Richard Haass

“There is no good governance without good people.”
― Diane Kalen-Sukra, Save Your City: How Toxic Culture Kills Community & What to Do About It

“Political participation of the ordinary citizen in America is pretty much restricted to the intermittently recurring elections: Politics is not organized to be a daily concern and responsibility of the common citizen. The relative paucity of trade unions, cooperatives, and other civic interest organizations tends to accentuate this abstention on the part of the common citizens from sharing in the government of their communities as a normal routine of life.”
― Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy Vol. 1