Civic Values Quotes

The Court has a special responsibility to ensure that the Constitution works in practice. While education, including the transmission of our civic values from one generation to the next, must play the major role in maintaining public confidence in the Court's decisions, the Court too must help maintain public acceptance of its own legitimacy. It can do this best by helping ensure that the Constitution remains "workable" in a broad sense of the term. Specifically, it can and should interpret the Constitution in a way that works for the people of today. ~ Stephen G. Breyer

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

Isn't it funny that in a society that values freedom above all things, things that are free are not valued? ~ Viet Thanh Nguyen

Sometimes a person does what he has to do, to protect those he values the most. ~ Rachel Van Dyken

In the background lurks the scourge of international terrorism. There are people exercising power in a few countries and leading political factions in others who seem to be moved by narrow, brutal and irrational impulses. Their view of their own self-interest is so blinkered as to leave no space for purely human values, for peaceful negotiation or for economic advancement. They are bent on the destruction of the established order and of civilised ways of doing business. They must never be allowed to succeed. ~ Margaret Thatcher

What makes us the strongest tribe on the continent is the fact that a group that opposes these values
a group that would have mankind remain in the new dark ages
is permitted to grow, permitted to exist ... and, after it becomes a violent terrorist organization, is allowed to live on it own lands, taken out of the lands of those it has attacked and continues to attack!" He had to stop speaking then
the applause was louder than even his amplified voice. "They expect that fear will drive us to become like them ... closed-minded, blind, angry. Our society will remain open and free so long as I am standing upright," he continued, once the applause died down. ~ Lia Habel

In short: if one has nothing of value to say, only that which is impure defilement, avoid them. They are masters of the dark. Of no use. ~ Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

When the hysteria of a witch-hunt is granted supremacy over the logic, values and spirit of the law, justice can only become a warped, alien concept in that society. ~ Stewart Stafford

Your calling is in your difference and uniqueness ~ Sunday Adelaja

When I first started writing plays I couldn't write good dialogue because I didn't respect how black people talked. I thought that in order to make art out of their dialogue I had to change it, make it into something different. Once I learned to value and respect my characters, I could really hear them. I let them start talking. ~ August Wilson

Sam Walton's values are: treat the customer right, take care of your people, be honest in your dealings, pass savings along to the customer, keep things simple, think small, control costs and continuously improve operations. ~ Michael Bergdahl

Open your eyes to new opportunities ~ Sunday Adelaja

Actions may be judged according to time and place, and their values may change; but style, language (apart from content) are crystallized at the moment. ~ Erika Mann

It's in our interest to take care of others. Self-centrednes s is opposed to basic human nature. In our own interest as human beings we need to pay attention to our inner values. Sometimes people think compassion is only of help to others, while we get no benefit. This is a mistake. When you concern yourself with others, you naturally develop a sense of self-confidence . To help others takes courage and inner strength. ~ Dalai Lama

She peered out after a moment; he was staring fixedly across the cut, with his gun resting on his left forearm. He raised it abruptly and fired twice more, waited, shrugged, and then trudged off. Quietly sat watching him in utter amazement and disgust. Far off on the hillside she could discern the jerky motions of a rock-squirrel kicking and kicking its life away. The man had hit it with his first bullet, and had fired again as it writhed there. It was wanton; it was useless. Quietly felt no particular pity for the animal; she was not a sentimentalist, and had a scale of values for the lower orders. What offended her was the waste of a life, of powder, even of skill - the skill of the man himself and that of the precision workers who had made his weapon. He had not wanted the creature for fur or flesh, but had as his only apparent desire an affirmation of the evident fact that he was bigger and stronger and more intelligent than a chipmunk. Enter civilization she would, but not in the company of this pervert. ~ Theodore Sturgeon

That I feel the need to defend myself shames me. I did what I had to do that day to save my life. But ingrained beliefs are difficult to exorcise no matter how valiant the attempt. I've always considered myself an enlightened woman. But I was raised Amish and some of those old values will always be a part of me. ~ Linda Castillo

In any society, the way a woman gives birth and the kind of care given to her and the baby points as sharply as an arrowhead to the key values of the culture. ~ Sheila Kitzinger

You're the tattooed, chain-smoking, beer-guzzling, train wreck, son of the movie star who's marrying my family-values, ex Marine Senator father. You're a tabloid headline, standing right here in front of me!

Yeah? Well, you're the goody-goody, stuck up, boring-ass virgin who's so uptight she can't find anyone to punch her v-card except the manwhore from her school who will screw literally anyone. And then turns out to be the most boring fucking lay I've ever had. ~ Sabrina Paige

It's not about having it all. It's about having what you value most. ~ Jean Chatzky

It took a couple of months before we were both convinced there were no rules about sexual activities in Hell and our spouses were not going to show up out of the blue. It was hard to start a sexual relationship in circumstances of such bizarre uncertainty, especially for an active Mormon and a good Christian, both lost in a Zoroastrian Hell. We were like virgin newlyweds. All my life I'd been raised to believe this kind of thing was wrong. All my life I had lived with a strong sense of morality. How do you give it up? How do you do things you thought you'd never do? Where do all the things you believed go, when all the supporting structure is found to be a myth? How do you know how or on what to take a moral stand, how do you behave when it turns out there are no cosmic rules, no categorical imperatives? It was difficult. So tricky to untangle. ~ Steven L. Peck

The crossing of space ... may do much to turn men's minds outwards and away from their present tribal squabbles. In this sense, the rocket, far from being one of the destroyers of civilisation, may provide the safety-value that is needed to preserve it. ~ Arthur C. Clarke

Artists are looking for a new modernity that would be based on translation: What matters today is to translate the cultural values of cultural groups and to connect them to the world network. This "reloading process" of modernism according to the twenty-first-century issues could be called altermodernism, a movement connected to the creolisation of cultures and the fight for autonomy, but also the possibility of producing singularities in a more and more standardized world. ~ Nicolas Bourriaud

Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future. ~ Robert L. Peters

Buy a $100 U.S. bond and frame it to teach your children about inflation by watching the U.S. bond value diminish to almost nothing over the next 20 years. ~ Marc Faber

When you take the time to really know yourself - know your values, know your beliefs, know what is important to you - you can make the right choice, even when it's hard.We all have choices. We can choose our direction, every single day. ~ Suraj Dahal

When a leader makes that fateful decision to hold one class of Soldiers to a higher standard over another that person has just set a new standard so low it doesn't register at all. ~ Donavan Nelson Butler

Pain los[es] its power when other things bec[o]me more important. ~ Brandon Sanderson

A decline in courage may be the most striking feature that an outside observer notices in the West today. The Western world has lost its civic courage ... Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling and intellectual elite, causing an impression of a loss of courage by the entire society. ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Peace is preferable to war. But it's not an absolute value, and so we always ask, What kind of peace? ~ Noam Chomsky

What makes you think that nonsense is bad? If they'd nurtured and cared for human nonsense over the ages the way they did intelligence, it might have turned into something of special value. ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

A fellow will hack half a year at a block of marble to make something in stone that hardly resembles a man. The value of statuary is owing to its difficulty. You would not value the finest head cut upon a carrot. ~ Samuel Johnson

Are we truly committed to the notion that ideals and values vary and alter in accordance with changing conditions? Should we not question such a relativistic dogma? Is not the degree of our sensitivity to the validity of the ultimate ideals and values that fluctuates rather than the ultimate ideals and values? ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel

Muslims, who have a completely different value system, come to the West, then they should accept that there are certain basic values in the West intrinsic to our culture. Just as I wouldn't suggest that any Westerner walk down the streets of Saudi Arabia in a bikini. ~ John Cleese

All this has been very formative in both my research and my teaching, so I value it enormously in my life. It's why I'm a strong proponent of general education
because I saw how it opened my eyes. ~ Paul Rozin

The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of the proactive person. ~ Stephen R. Covey

In the past, children learned their values at home, reinforced by organizations such as the Boy Scouts and, of course, their church or synagogue, but in all too many families that is no longer the case. ~ Paul Weyrich

By now, the corporations that dominate our media, like alcoholic fat cats, treat this situation as theirs by right ... Their concept of a diversity of views is the full range of politics and social values from center to far right. The American audience, having been exposed to a narrowing range of ideas over the decades, often assumes that what they see and hear in the major media is all there is. It is no way to maintain a lively marketplace of ideas, which is to say it is no way to maintain a democracy. ~ Ben Bagdikian

Moving from an objective statement of fact to a subjective statement of value does not work, because it leaves open questions that have not been answered. ~ David Hume

While criticism or fear of punishment may restrain us from doing wrong, it does not make us wish to do right. Disregarding this simple fact is the great error into which parents and educators fall when they rely on these negative means of correction. The only effective discipline is self-discipline, motivated by the inner desire to act meritoriously in order to do well in one's own eyes, according to one's own values, so that one may feel good about oneself may have a good conscience. ~ Bruno Bettelheim

Jake Green isn't just Jake Green. Jake represents all of us. The colour green is the central column of the spectrum and the name Jake has all sorts of numerical values. All things come back to him within the film's world of cons and games. ~ Guy Ritchie

Anthropologists have often described what happens to a primitive society when its spiritual values are exposed to the impact of modern civilisation. Its people lose the meaning of their lives, their social organisation disintegrates, and they themselves morally decay. We are now in the same condition. But we have never really understood what we have lost, for our spiritual leaders unfortunately were more interested in protecting their institutions than in understanding the mystery that symbols present. ~ Carl Jung

Learning to be flexible in values takes a very long time ... Of course I felt a little uncomfortable during questioning the concept of God, but then reading about the history and evolution of Gods. There were many different Gods: the God of war, the God of peace, the God of love, which was more like the people that invented them. They behaved, they got angry, they made sacrifices, they created floods when they didn't like the way things are going. This didn't come through as superior intelligence. ~ Jacque Fresco

Religion is so frequently a source of confusion in political life, and so frequently dangerous to democracy, precisely because it introduces absolutes into the realm of relative values. ~ Reinhold Niebuhr

If we are not prepared to think for ourselves, and to make the effort to learn how to do this well, we will always be in danger of becoming slaves to the ideas and values of others due to our own ignorance. ~ William Hughes