Government Food For Thought

Democracy is not something you believe in or a place to hang your hat, but it's something you do. You participate. If you stop doing it, democracy crumbles.
-- Abbie Hoffman

The first requisite of a good citizen in this republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his own weight.
 -- Theodore Roosevelt

Democracy is the most demanding of all forms of government in terms of the energy, imagination, and public spirit required of the individual.
-- George C. Marshall

The best defense against usurpatory government is an assertive citizenry.
--William F. Buckley

In a democracy, the individual enjoys not only the ultimate power but carries the ultimate responsibility.
-- Norman Cousins

In true democracy every man and woman is taught to think for himself or herself.
--Mahatma Gandhi

The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.
-- H.L. Mencken

The ultimate authority...resides in the people alone.
-- James Madison

Those wanting to improve democracy in their countries should not wait for permission.
-- Bulent Ecevit

The job of a citizen is to keep his mouth open.
-- Gunther Grass

Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote.
-- George Jean Nathan

A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy
-- Theodore Roosevelt

Freedom without obligation is anarchy. Freedom with obligation is democracy.
-- Earl Riney

Evolution of democracy is not possible if we are not prepared to hear the other side.
-- Mahatma Gandhi

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.
-- Alice Walker

There can be no daily democracy without daily citizenship.
-- Ralph Nader

The highest measure of democracy is neither the 'extent of freedom' nor the 'extent of equality', but rather the highest measure of participation.
-- A. d. Benoist

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
-- Margaret Mead

To make democracy work, we must be a notion of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.
-- Louis L'Amour

Democracy works when people claim it as their own.
-- Bill Moyers

The only title in our democracy superior to that of President is the title of citizen.
-- Louis Brandeis

The citizen can bring our political and governmental institutions back to life, make them responsive and accountable, and keep them honest. No one else can.
-- John Gardner

Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.
-- Abraham Lincoln

No one is born a good citizen; no nation is born a democracy. Rather, both are processes that continue to evolve over a lifetime.
-- Kofi Annan

We must become the change we want to see in the world.
 --Mahatma Gandhi

The strength of the Constitution lies entirely in the determination of each citizen to defend it. Only if every single citizen feels duty bound to do his share in this defense are the constitutional rights secure. 

-- Albert Einstein

The value of government to the people it serves is in direct relationship to the interest citizens themselves display in the affairs of state.
-- William Scranton

This City is what it is because our citizens are what they are.
-- Plato

The tyranny of a prince is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.
-- Montesquieu

If liberty and equality, as is thought by some are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost.
-- Aristotle

Democracy is never a final achievement. It is a call to an untiring effort.
-- John F. Kennedy

It is not the function of the government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.
-- Robert Jackson

Every citizen has to figure out what kind of government he or she wants.
-- Stephen Breyer

Citizenship is a tough occupation which obliges the citizen to make his own informed opinion and stand by it.
-- Martha Gellhorn

That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.
-- Thomas Jefferson

As citizens, we all have an obligation to intervene and become involved – it is the citizen who changes things.
-- José Saramago

Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.
-- Thomas Jefferson

The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.
-- Robert M. Hutchins

Rise and fall of a nation rests with every one of its citizens.
-- Chinese Proverb

I know of no safe repository of the ultimate power of society but people. And if we think them not enlightened enough, the remedy is not to take the power from them, but to inform them by education.
-- Thomas Jefferson

The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the government.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

The Jenius Has Quoted.