Public opinion, though slow as lava, in the end forces governments towards more sanity, more justice. My heroes and heroines are all private citizens. — Martha Gellhorn
Most Americans aren't the sort of citizens the Founding Fathers expected; they are contented serfs. Far from being active critics of government, they assume that its might makes it right. — Joseph Sobran
I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people except for a few public officials. — George Mason
An informed citizenry is the only true repository of the public will. — Thomas Jefferson
What is this much repeated phrase 'active citizen' supposed to mean? The active citizens are the ones who took the Bastille. — Camille Desmoulins
When ordinary people wake up, elites begin to tremble in their boots. — Cornel West
Ordinary people are capable of doing extraordinary things, and that's what it's all about. They must count. — Studs Terkel
The best defense against usurpatory government is an assertive citizenry. — William F. Buckley
As citizens of this democracy, you are the rulers and the ruled, the law-givers and the law-abiding, the beginning and the end. — Adlai E. Stevenson
The American citizen must be made aware that today a relatively small group of people is proclaiming its purposes to be the will of the People. That elitist approach to government must be repudiated. — William E. Simon
The only title in our democracy superior to that of President is the title of citizen. — Louis D. Brandeis
We are public servants. Like consumers, who come to us like kings. — Joko Widodo
Bad officials are the ones elected by good citizens who do not vote. — George Jean Nathan
I'm not a politician by profession. I am a citizen who decided I had to be personally involved. — Ronald Reagan
Short Ordinary Citizens Quotes
Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have. — Winston Churchill
I have not found a single good man in government; I have found good only in the people. — Louis Antoine de Saint-Just
Democracy is not a spectator sport. It requires active participation from all citizens. — Alexei Navalny
No Ordinary American Cares About Their Constitutional Rights — Joe Biden
We believe that an informed citizenry will act for life and not for death. — Albert Einstein
Officeholders are the agents of the people, not their masters. — Grover Cleveland
Of the people, by the people, for the people. — Sun Yat-sen
Ordinary Citizens Image Quotes
It is up to you to see the beauty in everyday things.
Ordinary People Quotes
God never intended His people to be ordinary or commonplace. His intentions were that they should be on fire for Him, conscious of His divine power, realizing the glory of the cross that foreshadows the crown. — Smith Wigglesworth
Shortly, the public will be unable to reason or think for themselves. They'll only be able to parrot the information they've been given on the previous night's news. — Zbigniew Brzezinski
If you are unwilling to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.
For the birth of something new, there has to be a happening. Newton saw an apple fall; James Watt watched a kettle boil; Roentgen fogged some photographic plates. And these people knew enough to translate ordinary happenings into something new. — Alexander Fleming
Heroes are ordinary people who make themselves extraordinary. — Gerard Way
Be bold. Do what the ordinary fear.
Pay any price to stay in the presence of extraordinary people. — Mike Murdock
People don't want to see the guy next door on the stage, they want to see a being from another planet. You want to see somebody you'd never meet in ordinary life. — Lemmy Kilmister
To me there is nothing complicated about ordinary equality. — Alice Paul
There aren't any great men. There are just great challenges that ordinary men like you and me are forced by circumstances to meet. — William Halsey
Ordinary Person Quotes
Remember. Every day, some ordinary person does something extraordinary. Today, it's your turn. — Lou Holtz
Hardship often prepares an ordinary person for an extraordinary destiny. — C. S. Lewis
My basic mistake in 'The World's Greatest Lover' was that I made the leading character a neurotic kook and sent him to Hollywood. I should have made him a perfectly normal, sane, ordinary person, and sent him to Hollywood. The audience identifies with the lead character. — Gene Wilder
Never love anybody who treats you like you're ordinary
Just try to make the world a better place for your having been here. — Jimmy Doolittle
Rationalism belongs to the cool observer. But because of the stupidity of the average person, they follow not reason, but faith. This naïve faith, requires necessary illusions and emotionally potent oversimplifications, which are provided by the myth maker to keep the ordinary person on course. — Sayings
I was not content to believe in a personal devil and serve him, in the ordinary sense of the word. I wanted to get hold of him personally and become his chief of staff. — Aleister Crowley
When you feel like you don't fit in, that's because you're extraordinary and this world is full of ordinary people
I am aware that a philosopher's ideas are not subject to the judgment of ordinary persons, because it is his endeavour to seek the truth in all things, to the extent permitted to human reason by God. — Nicolaus Copernicus
Ordinary people, even weak people, can do extraordinary things through temporary courage generated by a situation. But the person of character does not need the situation to generate his courage. It is a part of his being and a standard approach to all life's challenges. — Michael Josephson
If you pursue happiness, you are an ordinary person. If happiness pursues you, you are an extraordinary person. Do not chase happiness; let it chase you. — Peter Deunov
There are three kinds of friends in the world. An ordinary person sees only who you are; for that you don't need a friend. Then there's a friend who sees in you what you can be. And then there's the real holy Friend, and the presence of this Friend you are already. — Shlomo Carlebach
Ordinary Man Quotes
The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse. — Carlos Castaneda
The years go by one after the other; time slips past us with out our being aware of it; we grow old like ordinary men and we shall end like them. — Louis XIV
The great man is he who does not lose his child's heart. — Mencius
Don't lose sight of ordinary people with extraordinary hearts.
Relish the challenge of overcoming difficulties that would crush ordinary men...learn to suffer. — Mark Twight
The highest point at which human life and art meet is in the ordinary. To look down on the ordinary is to despise what you can't have. Show me a man who fears being ordinary, and I'll show you a man who is not yet a man. — Yukio Mishima
A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Never love anybody who treats you like you're ordinary
Genius... is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one. — Ezra Pound
The difference between a great soul and an ordinary man is this: the latter weeps while leaving this body, whereas the former laughs. Death seems to him a mere play. — Sarada Devi
It is best for ordinary men to have only one wife ! — Akbar
I was brought up in a very ordinary family, in fact, a worker's family. Both my father and mother were ordinary citizens. — Vladimir Putin
I certainly think its very important that writers as citizens - not necessarily as writers, but just as ordinary citizens - should talk about things that matter to them. — Vikram Seth
Democracy is not just voting for your leaders; it's really premised upon ordinary citizens understanding the issues. — Howard Rheingold
Never doubt a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
A song has a few rights the same as ordinary citizens... if it happens to feel like flying where humans cannot fly... to scale mountains that are not there, who shall stop it? — Charles Ives
Democracy does not require perfect equality, but it does require that citizens share a common life. What matters is that people of different backgrounds and social positions encounter one another, and bump up against one another, in the course of ordinary life. — Michael Sandel
There is a denial of the value of the individual. Christianity affirms the value of each individual soul. Nazism denies it. The individual is sacrificed to the idol of the German Leader, German State or the German race. The ordinary citizen is allowed to hear and think only as the rulers decree. — Clement Attlee
Hardship often prepares an ordinary person for an extraordinary destiny.
King's response to our crisis can be put in one word: revolution. A revolution in our priorities, a reevaluation of our values, a reinvigoration of our public life and a fundamental transformation of our way of thinking and living that promotes a transfer of power from oligarchs and plutocrats to everyday people and ordinary citizens. — Cornel West
Medicine people are truly citizens of two worlds, and those who continue to walk the path of medicine power learn to keep their balance in both the ordinary and the non-ordinary worlds. — Paula Gunn Allen
I am afraid the ordinary citizen will not like to be told that the banks can, and do, create money...And they who control the credit of the nation direct the policy of Governments and hold in the hollow of their hands the destiny of the people. — Reginald McKenna
What people don't understand is this is something that we only have in America. There is no other country in the world where the ordinary citizen can go out and enjoy hunting and fishing.
There's no other nation in the world where that happens. And it's very much a part of our heritage. — Norman Schwarzkopf
As for cages themselves, an ordinary citizen who kept dogs in similar conditions for their entire lives would risk prosecution for cruelty. A pig producer who keeps an animal of comparable intelligence in this manner, however, is more likely to be rewarded with a tax concession or, in some countries, a direct government subsidy. — Peter Singer
Architects today tend to depreciate themselves, to regard themselves as no more than just ordinary citizens without the power to reform the future. — Kenzo Tange
As always with any discussion of elite immunity, it's crucial to note that what makes this development such a particularly warped travesty is that the very same elites who enjoy this immunity have created the world's largest, and the Western world's most oppressive and merciless, penal state for ordinary citizens. — Glenn Greenwald
An artist may have burdens the ordinary citizen doesn't know, but the ordinary citizen has burdens that many artists never even touch. — Patti Smith
Although I was born to famous parents, I know and feel the problems of ordinary citizens. — Benigno Aquino III
The America I know is great - not because government made it great but because ordinary citizens like me, like my father and like you are given the opportunity every day to do extraordinary things. — Mia Love
Our intelligence agencies will continue to gather information about the intentions of governments - as opposed to ordinary citizens - around the world, in the same way that the intelligence services of every other nation does. We will not apologize simply because our services may be more effective. — Barack Obama
Our efforts will only be effective if ordinary citizens in other countries have confidence that the United States respects their privacy too. And the leaders of our close friends and allies deserve to know that if I want to learn what they think about an issue, I will pick up the phone and call them, rather than turning to surveillance. — Barack Obama
What is called “apathy” is, I believe, a feeling of helplessness on the part of the ordinary citizen, a feeling of impotence in the face of enormous power. It’s not that people are apathetic; they do care about what is going on, but don’t know what to do about it, so they do nothing, and appear to be indifferent. — Howard Zinn
In a word, removing control farther away from the ordinary citizen and taxpayer is tantamount to giving the intelligent, far-sighted and public spirited elements in society a longer lever to work with. — Edward Alsworth Ross
My central focus is creating employment for the ordinary citizen. — Narendra Modi
Our great progressive struggles have been waged to make sure ordinary citizens, and not just the rich and privileged, share in the benefits of a free society. — Bill Moyers
The right of ordinary citizens to possess weapons is the most extraordinary, most controversial, and least understood of those liberties secured by Englishmen and bequeathed to their American colonists. It lies at the very heart of the relationship between the individual and his fellows, and between the individual and his government. — Joyce Lee Malcolm
To accept your country without betraying it, you must love it for that which shows what it might become. America -- this monument to the genius of ordinary men and women, this place where hope becomes capacity, this long, halting turn of 'no' into the 'yes' -- needs citizens who love it enough to re-imagine and re-make it. — Cornel West
It will not be enough to rely on experts. Ordinary citizens must become experts too. It will take public opinion on a wide scale to ensure that world leaders act. — Mikhail Gorbachev
The ordinary politician has a very low estimate of human nature. In his daily life he comes into contact chiefly with persons who want to get something or to avoid something. Beyond this circle of seekers after privileges, individuals and organized minorities, he is aware of a large unorganized, indifferent mass of citizens who ask nothing in particular and rarely complain. The politician comes after a while to think that the art of politics is to satisfy the seekers after favors and to mollify the inchoate mass with noble sentiments and patriotic phrases. — Walter Lippmann
For days after the launch, Sputnik was a wonderful curiosity. A man-made moon visible by ordinary citizens, it inspired awe and pride that humans had finally launched an object into space. — David Hoffman
And what do Democrats stand for, if they are so ready to defame concerned citizens as the "mob" - a word betraying a Marie Antoinette delusion of superiority to ordinary mortals. I thought my party was populist, attentive to the needs and wishes of those outside the power structure. And as a product of the 1960s, I thought the Democratic party was passionately committed to freedom of thought and speech. — Camille Paglia
Germans who wish to use firearms should join the SS or the SA - ordinary citizens don't need guns, as their having guns doesn't serve the State. — Heinrich Himmler
Through a blog, an ordinary citizen such as myself can use the Internet, this thing invented by Albert Gore, to talk from my house to the U.S. capital and to make use of my right to point out to government officials and to the media when they are wrong. — John Jay Hooker
I am afraid that the ordinary citizen will not like to be told that the banks can and do create and destroy money. And they who control the credit of a nation direct the policy of governments, and hold in the hollow of their hands the destiny of the people. — Richard McKenna
For an ordinary citizen, what is the common interaction you have with a police officer? When they pull you over for speeding, or when they write you a ticket for parking. The rest of the time is patrolling minority neighborhoods like an occupying army. It's suppression of blacks, and it's revenue enhancement. Surveillance is a Band-Aid. That's like saying, "Let's surveil the SS." No! Let's get rid of the SS! — Ted Rall
I feel that we're dividing along class lines for the first time in our history. Now one thing that has happened in this reaction to globalization is that the elites are not respectful of the values of those who are ordinary citizens, so we seem to be dividing ourselves into ever-smaller identity groups, each with its own narrative, each with its own grievance, and that's a problem. — Condoleezza Rice
Often vastly more important, international agreements are not routinely published in draft form or publicly debated, and civil society organizations and ordinary citizens often learn of important global institutional design decisions only after they have already been finalized and adopted. The only reliable way to be kept informed and to exert timely influence is by lobbying and paying the politicians and their negotiators. — Thomas Pogge
Drafts of domestic legislation must be published, debated and publicly voted on, which gives ample opportunities to civil society organizations and ordinary citizens to at least understand what's being proposed and to voice and to organize opposition before the decision is made. — Thomas Pogge
There are people who disagree with the left, and that will not be tolerated. People who disagree with them, whether they are high judges, whether they are prosecutors, whether they are average ordinary every day citizens, it will not be tolerated. — Rush Limbaugh
There are these two strands, the Dionysian and the Appollonian, and in the same theater grew up from these folks who during the day were just ordinary citizens, and at night they would sneak off to the woods and party. — Howard Rheingold
I consider it my patriotic duty as an ordinary citizen - not as Secretary of State - to ask questions. I think we have to ask ourselves the tough questions. — Madeleine Albright
When greedy people are given gold, they are bitter that they haven't gotten jewels; when they are made barons they are resentful that they haven't been made lords. Though powerful and rich, their attitude is that of beggars. For those who know how to be content, simple fare is more delicious than rich delicacies, a cloth coat is warmer than fox fur, and an ordinary citizen does not defer to a king or a lord. — Zicheng Hong
There is nothing beyond the reach of ordinary citizens doing the daily work of democracy, and no problem too great to tackle with the power of active citizenship. — Joan Claybrook
A criminal has a kind of freedom by definition that the ordinary citizen doesn't have. The criminal's able to realize himself in ways not available to the general population, if you want to put it that way. They're interesting and unpredictable. Characters always have to break some sort of bound or other to be interesting. It also helps if they're paradoxical. — William Monahan
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
Nature is located mainly in national parks, which are vast tracts of wilderness that have been set aside by the United States government so citizens will always have someplace to go where they can be attacked by bears. And we're not talking about ordinary civilian bears, either: We're talking about federal bears, which can behave however they want to because they are protected by the same union as postal clerks. — Dave Barry
Big money buys access in Washington, and access purchases influence. It is as simple as that. And they have basically given a green light, a further green light, after Citizens United, to the biggest money to have the bigger voice in our politics, and to sound out and drown out the voice of just ordinary citizens. — Mark Shields
The rule of law does not guarantee freedom, since general law as well as personal edicts can be tyrannical. But increasing reliance on the rule of law clearly played a major role in transforming Western society from a world in which the ordinary citizen was literally subject to the arbitrary will of his master to a world in which the ordinary citizen could regard himself as his own master — Milton Friedman
In Conclusion
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