Civic Responsibility Quotes

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

“In the face of impossible odds, people who love this country can change it.”
― Barack Obama

“Democracy is not simply a license to indulge individual whims and proclivities. It is also holding oneself accountable to some reasonable degree for the conditions of peace and chaos that impact the lives of those who inhabit one’s beloved extended community.”
― Aberjhani, Splendid Literarium: A Treasury of Stories, Aphorisms, Poems, and Essays

“While the government is "studying" and funding and organizing its Big Thought, nothing is being done. But the citizen who is willing to Think Little, and, accepting the discipline of that, to go ahead on his own, is already solving the problem. A man who is trying to live as a neighbor to his neighbors will have a lively and practical understanding of the work of peace and brotherhood, and let there be no mistake about it - he is doing that work...
A man who is willing to undertake the discipline and the difficulty of mending his own ways is worth more to the conservation movement than a hundred who are insisting merely that the government and the industries mend their ways.
(pg.87, "Think Little")”
― Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian 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

“Every so often, in the midst of chaos, you come across an amazing, inexplicable instance of civic responsibility. Maybe the last shred of faith people have is in their firemen.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Hocus Pocus

“I’m just trying to do my part to save the world.”
― J. Cornell Michel, Jordan's Brains: A Zombie Evolution

“Democracy transformed from thin paper to thick action is the greatest form of government on earth.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“The strategic center of the rebellion was not a place – not New York, Philadelphia, not the Hudson corridor – but the Continental Army itself.”
― Joseph J. Ellis, Revolutionary Summer: The Birth of American Independence

“The topics we learn from our four core subjects during our childhood and adolescent stage of our lives help us to understand the norms of common knowledge and take pride of our citizenship.”
― Saaif Alam

“When common sense and civic sense
combine with student sense,
world learns the meaning of sapiens.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sapionova: 200 Limericks for Students

“Civic sense without common sense leads to mob violence.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Rowdy Scientist: Handbook of Humanitarian Science

“Till civic intervention becomes the norm, political intervention will achieve nothing.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Rowdy Scientist: Handbook of Humanitarian Science

“[Gordon Hirabayashi] It is up to those of us who feel that a wrong has been committed, that we have fallen short, to bear witness to that fact. It is our obligation to show forth our light in times of darkness, nay, our privilege. The risk is great; the consequences unpleasant. But there is the vision of those seekers of independence. We must carry the torch.”
― Daniel James Brown, Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II

“My Papa thinks I should take a break from detecting for a while.”
― Kitty Felde, State of the Union

“We love our country. We love our families. We cherish our freedom and independence. And we always come together to defend and protect our nation. In these divided times, let’s remember: Unity doesn’t require uniformity. Just a shared commitment to the common good.”
― Neil Ghosh, Do More Good: Inspiring Lessons from Extraordinary People

“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