Civics Quotes

“The question of the stranger in a society which estranges everybody from it--while forcing everybody to assimilate their own alienation--takes cover under dubious and sinister masks.”
― Norman Manea

“We should change the name of AR-15s to 'Marco Rubio' because they are so easy to buy”
― sarah chadwick

“Democracy is not something we have by divine right. It is a hard-won privilege granted to us by those who came before us and fought for it. These were people who knew the tyranny and injustice of oppressive masters who would deny ordinary people a voice and basic human rights, such as freedom of expression and association. But we forget that democracy requires an active, informed, and engaged citizenry that seeks the well-being of all, not just their gang, in order to thrive.”
― Diane Kalen-Sukra, Save Your City: How Toxic Culture Kills Community & What to Do About It

“The law is too important to be left to the lawyers, to paraphrase Georges Clemenceau about war and generals. We laymen know too little about our Constitution and think too superficially about its influence on the qualities of American life. Civic duty requires more.”
― David K. Shipler, The Rights of the People: How Our Search for Safety Invades Our Liberties

“Alexis de Tocqueville warned that as the economy and government of America got bigger, citizens could become smaller: less practiced in the forms of everyday power, more dependent on vast distant social machines, more isolated and atomized--and therefore more susceptible to despotism.

He warned that if the "habits of the heart" fed by civic clubs and active self-government evaporated, citizens would regress to pure egoism. They would stop thinking about things greater than their immediate circle. Public life would disappear. And that would only accelerate their own disempowerment.

This is painfully close to a description of the United States since Trump and Europe since Brexit. And the only way to reverse this vicious cycle of retreat and atrophy is to reverse it: to find a sense of purpose that is greater than the self, and to exercise power with others and for others in democratic life.”
― Eric Liu, You're More Powerful than You Think: A Citizen's Guide to Making Change Happen

“If the citizens themselves devote their life to matters of trade, the way will be opened to many vices. Since the foremost tendency of tradesmen is to make money, greed is awakened in the hearts of the citizens through the pursuit of trade. The result is that everything in the city will bcome venal; good faith will be destroyed and the way opened to all kinds of trickery; each one will work only for his own profit, despising the public good; the cultivation of virtue will fail since honor, virtue's reward, will be bestowed upon the rich. Thus, in such a city, civic life will necessarily be corrupted. (On Kingship II, 3)”
― Thomas Aquinas

“It is all-essential to the continuance of our healthy national life that we should recognize this community of interest among our people. The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us, and therefore in public life that man is the best representative of each of us who seeks to do good to each by doing good to all; in other words, whose endeavor it is not to represent any special class and promote merely that class's selfish interests, but to represent all true and honest men of all sections and all classes and to work for their interests by working for our common country.”
― Theodore Roosevelt, A Square Deal

“We want things to return to normal, back to a world in which we do not have to waste time rebutting demented conspiracy theories and fact-checking farcical lies every single day. We want a government that operates competently and honestly, headed by a president who behaves with dignity and integrity. If we were at risk of under-appreciating the quiet grace of decency, Trump has cured us of that. But after we evict the squatter, we must repair the house he trashed. Trump became president because millions of Americans felt that a self-satisfied elite had created a pleasant society only for themselves. Millions of other Americans felt disregarded and discarded. They determined to crash their way in, and they wielded Trump as their crowbar to pry open the barriers against them. Trump is a criminal and deserves the penalties of law. Trump's enablers and politics and media are contemptable and deserve the scorn of honest patriots. But Trump's voters are our compatriots. Their fate will determine ours. You do not beat Trump until you have restored an America that has room for all its people. The resentments that produced Trump will not be assuaged by contempt for the resentful. Reverse prejudice, reverse stereotyping, never mind whether they are right or wrong--they are wrong--just be aware that they are acids poored upon the connections that bind a democratic society. [...] Maybe you cannot bring everybody along with you. But you still must try--for your own sake, as well as theirs.”
― David Frum, Trumpocalypse: Restoring American Democracy

“Altruism, generosity, solidarity and civic spirit are not like commodities that are depleted with use. They are more like muscles that develop and grow stronger with exercise. One of the defects of a market-driven society is that it lets these virtues languish. To renew our public life we need to exercise them more strenuously.”
― Michael J. Sandel, What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets

“Work takes all the time and with it one has no leisure for the republic and his friends.”
― Paul Lafargue, The Right to Be Lazy

“In a democracy, politics is an expression and form of public ethics, wherein citizens become aware of their interdependence, and the reciprocity in this relationship reinforces their mutual respect for the rights and duties of each to the other.”
― Michael Singh

“The need to revive civic education in our modern democracies is of the utmost importance to our future ability to preserve our democratic institutions and civil society. It is critical to preserving the equality of fundamental rights of all people. It is critical to developing the capacity for effective action to address the many complex social, political, economic, and environmental challenges arrayed before us. It is critical if we are going to successfully navigate the Fourth Industrial Revolution and ensure it truly results in positive disruptions that work in the interests of the people by democratizing social, financial, and political edifices -- rather than simply intensifying the concentration of wealth, power, and influence.”
― Diane Kalen-Sukra, Save Your City: How Toxic Culture Kills Community & What to Do About It

“Involvement in the life of the community was a vital part of every citizen's daily life; preparing the next generation for such a civic life was the schools' primary mission.”
― Michael Rebell

“Leadership, Boal concluded, is the art of facilitating imaginative interventions by the greatest possible number...”
― Doris Sommer, The Work of Art in the World: Civic Agency and Public Humanities

“We should worry again about the connection between play-starved education and eroded mechanisms for political debate, if worry can lead beyond deadlocks. Too often, academic essays pursue analysis and critique but stop short of speculation about remedies, as if intellectual work excluded an element of creativity. In fact, essays that remain risk-averse miss the potential of the genre to "assay," or try out, ideas.”
― Doris Sommer, The Work of Art in the World: Civic Agency and Public Humanities

“The more formal educated you have, the more you can distinguish between truth and fiction. In other words, individuals who are more educated are less likely to be brainwashed from negative influence.”
― Saaif Alam

“An understanding of media’s effects constitutes a civil defense against media fallout”
― Marshall McLuhan

“Honor He Wrote Sonnet 56

It's the citizens’ duty to make a nation nonpartisan,
Government is meant to serve as powerless figurehead.
All my hopes lie in the hands of accountable citizens,
A good politician acts a citizen, not political dunderhead.
So no more procrastination with the curation of society,
No more playing hooky in the school of life and sanity.
Be the politician that you seek in the sewers of state,
Not by law but by an indefatigable accountability.
Democracy means rule of the people, not sleep of people,
Yet that's what it means to people 'n politicians alike.
But shhh, nobody is supposed to admit any of it in public,
For discretion is the better part of a society of sleeping mice.
Let sleeping slime sleep, if you are human, take charge now.
Dream with your eyes open and keep your democracy vow.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Honor He Wrote: 100 Sonnets For Humans Not Vegetables

“Honor He Wrote Sonnet 93

Citizen lover is citizen justice,
All others are citizens of malice.
Love begets justice, whereas,
Judgment produces more malice.
All think, justice is an independent force,
But, justice is simply a descendant of love.
Where there is love, justice prevails,
Otherwise, there's just talk of justice 'n love.
Pledge allegiance to no judgment by intellect,
But only to love and love alone, my friend.
Where there is a place for love,
There is place for everything else.
Once a person has realized love untaintable,
They've achieved everything celebratable.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Honor He Wrote: 100 Sonnets For Humans Not Vegetables

“Free speech is a phenomenon of human society, hate speech is an act of stoneage barbarians.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Honor He Wrote: 100 Sonnets For Humans Not Vegetables

“Justice begins with a just civilian, not a politician.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Honor He Wrote: 100 Sonnets For Humans Not Vegetables

“The government's job is not to govern but listen, and the citizen's duty is to speak as beings nonpartisan.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Honor He Wrote: 100 Sonnets For Humans Not Vegetables

“Fetch those cables from your spinal cord, and electrify this dampened world!”
― Abhijit Naskar, High Voltage Habib: Gospel of Undoctrination

“here in North Carolina, Republicans launched a specific attack on civics education because they don’t want an educated and engaged and informed population, because those are the kinds of people that hold people accountable. Right?

(Interview with Truthout)”
― Bree Newsome Bass

“In a civilized society we are all king, we are all policymaker. The world advances when we advance as its fervent keeper.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Making Britain Civilized: How to Gain Readmission to The Human Race

“If we fail, then freedom fails.”
― John F. Kennedy

“Everybody is a terrorist, till you see the reformist. Bring that reformer out my friend, in its full glory and ferociousness. Once you do, every time a politician or fundamentalist even dreams of doing something inhuman, a voice of caution will strike them from inside - don't you dare, kid - or else, they’ll bring hell down on you - then you’ll have neither the seat, nor the ass to sit on it!”
― Abhijit Naskar, Mucize Misafir Merhaba: The Peace Testament

“When the civilians remember their responsibility, politicians will forget which party they belong to, so will their next of kin. And at the slightest urge for exploitation, a voice of caution will ring in their head - don't you dare, kid - or else, you’ll have neither the seat nor the ass to sit on it!”
― Abhijit Naskar, Corazon Calamidad: Obedient to None, Oppressive to None

“Being taught to avoid talking about politics and religion has led to a lack of understanding of politics and religion. What we should have been taught was how to have a civil conversation about a difficult topic.”
― unknown author

“There's a small handful of very wealthy and powerful people who actively strategize and spend a lot of money (numbers with multiple commas) to make sure that you ignore politics and neglect your privileges that come with being an American citizen.”
― Emily Amick, Democracy in Retrograde: How to Make Changes Big and Small in Our Country and in Our Lives