User:BD2412/Government—citizen participation

Government—citizen participation


 * Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country? If you are the first, then you are a parasite; if the second, then you are an oasis in the desert.
 * Khalil Gibran.—A Third Treasury of Kahlil Gibran, ed. Andrew Dib Sherfan, p. 53 (1975). "This statement appeared in an article written by Gibran in Arabic, over fifty years ago. The heading of that article can be translated either The New Deal or The New Frontier" (p. 52). The following translation was made before John F. Kennedy's 1961 inaugural address: Are you a politician who says to himself: "I will use my country for my own benefit"? If so, you are naught but a parasite living on the flesh of others. Or are you a devoted patriot, who whispers into the ear of his inner self: "I love to serve my country as a faithful servant." If so, you are an oasis in the desert, ready to quench the thirst of the wayfarer.—Kahlil Gibran, The Voice of the Master, trans. Anthony R. Ferris, p. 34 (1958).


 * I like people in the cities, in the States and in the Nation to ask themselves now and then: "What can I do for my city?" not "How much can I get out of my city?" I like people to speak now and then in the same devotion to State and Nation, because, after all, my countrymen, whenever a man contributes to the betterment of his community, whenever he contributes to the enlarged influence of his State, whenever he contributes to the greater glory of the Republic and makes it a better place in which to live and in which to invite men to participate and aspire, he contributes to himself as he contributes to the welfare of his fellow men.
 * Warren G. Harding, address at the laying of the cornerstone of the City Club Building, St. Louis, Missouri, June 21, 1923.—Speeches and Addresses of Warren G. Harding, President of the United States,… 1923, p. 31 (1923).


 * It is now the moment when by common consent we pause to become conscious of our national life and to rejoice in it, to recall what our country has done for each of us, and to ask ourselves what we can do for our country in return.
 * Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Memorial Day speech, May 30, 1884, Keene, New Hampshire.—Holmes, Speeches, p. 2–3 (1934).


 * And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.
 * John F. Kennedy, inaugural address, January 20, 1961. The Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1961, p. 3. This is one of seven inscriptions carved on the walls at the gravesite of John F. Kennedy, Arlington National Cemetery. He foreshadowed this remark earlier: "But the New Frontier of which I speak is not a set of promises—it is a set of challenges. It sums up not what I intend to offer the American people, but what I intend to ask of them." Acceptance speech, Democratic national convention, Los Angeles, California, July 15, 1960, Vital Speeches of the Day, August 1, 1960, p. 611.


 * The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it—and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.
 * John F. Kennedy, inaugural address, January 20, 1961. The Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1961, p. 3. This is one of seven inscriptions carved on the walls at the gravesite of John F. Kennedy, Arlington National Cemetery.


 * In our own lives, let each of us ask—not just what government will do for me, but what can I do for myself?
 * Richard Nixon, second inaugural address, January 20, 1973. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Richard Nixon, 1973, p. 14.


 * The value of government to the people it serves is in direct relationship to the interest citizens themselves display in the affairs of state.
 * Attributed to William Scranton, governor of Pennsylvania. Reported as unverified in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1989).