Civil Quotes

#1. Reading ... is an activity subsequent to writing: more resigned, more civil, more intellectual.

Jorge Luis Borges

#2. What on earth could be more luxurious than a sofa, a book, and a cup of coffee? ... Was ever anything so civil?

Anthony Trollope

#3. What this brings out is that modern politics cannot be a matter of genuine moral consensus. And it is not. Modern politics is civil war carried on by other means,

Alasdair MacIntyre

#4. There's no problem on the planet that can't be solved without violence. That's the lesson of the civil rights movement.

Andrew Young

#5. There's a long bipartisan tradition of civil rights enforcement.

Thomas Perez

#6. Terrorism has replaced Communism as the rationale for the militarization of the country [America], for military adventures abroad, and for the suppression of civil liberties at home. It serves the same purpose, serving to create hysteria.

Howard Zinn

#7. Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society.

Edmund Burke

#8. I was born at a very crucial time. I consider 1968 to be the Mason Dixon line between pre- and post-civil rights generation ideas, whereas a lot of people born before '68 they kind of went into that Moses mentality. Like, I'm not going to make it, you know, I don't have any hope.

Questlove

#9. Although I hold the highest civil honour in the world, I have always regarded my rank and title as a Past Grand Master of Masons the greatest honour that had ever come to me.

Harry S. Truman

#10. My father was a civil servant, so having a regular job, being respectable is a big deal for me. Respectable in the sense that I support my family. That's what I mean by respectability.

Hanif Kureishi

#11. The New Year is the season in which custom seems more particularly to authorize civil and harmless lies, under the name of compliments. People reciprocally profess wishes which they seldom form and concern which they seldom feel.

Lord Chesterfield

#12. In Indonesia, where I am from, the Dutch-imposed Civil Code dating back to the colonial 1870s prevailed until the 1974 Law on Marriage granted married women greater rights, including the ability to open individual bank accounts.

Sri Mulyani Indrawati

#13. In civil business; what first? boldness; what second and third? boldness: and yet boldness is a child of ignorance and baseness.

Francis Bacon

#14. I grew up. I began to think the United States had some problems that really required the help of artistic people to solve. And I gave myself permission to be a writer instead of a civil servant.

Wallace Shawn

#15. The three most written-about subjects of all time are Jesus, the Civil War, and the Titanic.

Daniel Mendelsohn

#16. After the ignominious collapse of the Copenhagen global climate change summit in 2009, Bolivia organised a People's Summit with 35,000 participants from 140 countries - not just representatives of governments, but also civil society and activists.

Noam Chomsky

#17. Everything hinges on education. Without it, you can't advocate for proper health care, for housing, for a civil rights bill that ensures your rights.

Susan L. Taylor

#18. More people more accepting of civil unions and gay marriage, which our pollster said was the most significant change they've seen on any social issue. So, this country is changing in a way.

Norah O'Donnell

#19. When poor people get involved in a long conflict, such as a strike or a civil rights drive, and the pressure increases each day, there is a deep need for spiritual advice. Without it, we see families crumble, leadership weaken, and hard workers grow tired.

Cesar Chavez

#20. The Civil Rights Commission should never have been brought into existence. It has been most prejudiced in its viewpoint, and has fomented trouble and racial disturbance since its inception. It should be abolished, not extended.

John Sparkman

#21. We could in fact transport a person, say a kid who didn't know what it was like to be in a civil rights march. We could actually take you into that experience, so that you could better appreciate what happened and why it happened.

Dexter Scott King

#22. Any kingdom divided by civil war is doomed. A family splintered by feuding will fall apart.

Anonymous

#23. One minute the teacher was talking about the Civil War. And the next minute he was gone. There. Gone. No 'poof.' No flash of light. No explosion.

Michael Grant

#24. The law, which restrains a man from doing mischief to his fellow citizens, though it diminishes the natural, increases the civil liberty of mankind.

William Blackstone

#25. Sometimes we see the Civil War in movies and imagine these neatly aligned rows of men with muskets, walking in line to shoot each other. In reality the things that fascinated me were how absolutely ruthless and violent so many engagements were, how much suffering and how men were not prepared.

Seth Grahame-Smith

#26. Everyone cares for disabled people, right? What they don't care for are genuine civil rights for disabled people. MARY JOHNSON tells the tortuous, enraging story of how Congress enacted a law that instead of protecting against discrimination has turned 'the disabled' into a political punching bag.

William Greider

#27. A little old lady sitting at the front of the bus can do nothing to change civil rights.

Chuck Palahniuk

#28. Here's why I cannot vote for Rudy Giuliani. He's pro-abortion. He's never repudiated gay marriage in New York City or at least the civil unions in New York City. He's called a champion of gay rights. Rudy is opposed to school choice. He's in favor of open borders.

James Dobson

#29. Civil disobedience has an honourable history, and when the urgency and moral clarity cross a certain threshold, then I think that civil disobedience is quite understandable, and it has a role to play.

Al Gore

#30. The unsung heroes of the civil rights movement were always the wives and the mothers.

Andrew Young

#31. Challenging mass incarceration requires something civil rights advocates have long been reluctant to do: advocacy on behalf of criminals. Even

Michelle Alexander

#32. We need to focus on killing the bad guys, not getting stuck in Middle Eastern civil wars that don't keep America safe.

Ted Cruz

#33. A civil tongue speaks the language of masters. An uncivil tongue reveals character flaws of its master.

John R. Dallas Jr.

#34. The Civil Service is a vital economic asset to the UK - firstly, in the way it creates a framework for excellence in service delivery and secondly, in how it helps organise the best way to deliver modern public services on which both businesses and individuals depend.

John Hutton

#35. One of the keys to ensuring accountability is to have civil servants who witness fraud, waste and abuse to blow the whistle.

Byron Dorgan

#36. We need a new Latin American policy that is bold - different. We need to focus on building civil society, focus on the lack of infrastructure. We need look at ways to foster economic opportunity. There needs to be a more comprehensive economic vision in the region.

Mel Martinez

#37. If I were an Arab-American, I would insist on being profiled. This is not the time for civil rights. There are larger issues for Americans.

Jack Nicholson

#38. The pursuit of perfection always implies a definite aristocracy, which is as much a goal of effort as a noble philosophy, an august civil polity or a great art.

Ralph Adams Cram

#39. The Klan had used fear, intimidation and murder to brutally oppress over African-Americans who sought justice and equality and it sought to respond to the young workers of the civil rights movement in Mississippi in the same way.

Charles B. Rangel

#40. The Confederate flag was the flag of the American South during the civil war. It was the flag of people who were fighting against their own government in an attempt to retain slavery. It was the flag of people who thought slavery was no problem, who thought slavery was a good thing.

John Niven

#41. I was reminded as I was reviewing my life, that I have been in too many conflicts, too many wars, political battles, military battles, civil strifes in government. And always one lesson stands out and that is, those whom you fight most passionately often turn out to be your best friends.

Ferdinand Marcos

#42. Satyagraha does not begin and end with civil disobedience.

Mahatma Gandhi

#43. I have not supported same-sex marriage. I have supported civil partnerships and contractual relationships.

Hillary Clinton

#44. Civil war is an exercise in building group loyalties. The trauma of civil war and massacre works not just to desocialize the victims but to socialize the killers into a particular ethical and political stance. Men who had killed together were bound together.

Richard Alston

#45. Even though some in our government may claim that civil liberties must be compromised in order to protect the public, we must be wary of what we are giving up in the name of fighting terrorism.

Lucille Roybal-Allard

#46. Nothing could be more insulting to me than the concept of civil rights. It means perpetual second-class citizenship for me and my kind.

James Meredith

#47. King consciously steered away from legal claims and instead relied on civil disobedience.

Constance Baker Motley

#48. For far too long the American public and business sector have kept their silence as civil liberties have been whittled away by statutory and regulatory measures.

Bob Barr

#49. What has been adjudicated and established in the wake of Vietnam and the Civil Rights movement is the ability of the press to basically write or broadcast almost anything about the government. There's very few restrictions in that way.

Lowell Bergman

#50. I am ... a realist. The magnitude of what one terms license or civil liberties or personal freedom has got to be adjusted to the circumstances.

Lee Kuan Yew

#51. I'm trying to be a singer, not a civil rights leader.

Adam Lambert

#52. The civil libertarians among us would rather defend the constitution than protect our nation's security.

Jeff Sessions

#53. Civil rights laws were not passed to protect the rights of white men and do not apply to them.

Mary Frances Berry

#54. But hereof be assured, that all is not lawful nor just that is statute by civil laws; neither yet is everything sin before God, which ungodly persons allege to be treason.

John Knox

#55. We need to in this country begin again to raise civil discourse to another level. I mean, we shout and scream and yell and get very little accomplished, but you can disagree very much with the next guy and still be friends and acquaintances.

Leah Ward Sears

#56. My parents demonstrated against the Vietnam war, they were into the civil rights movement, the feminist movement, they started the first vegetarian restaurant in Pittsburgh.

Justin Sane

#57. The Civil War is not ended: I question whether any serious civil war ever does end.

T. S. Eliot

#58. I appreciate people who are civil, whether they mean it or not. I think: Be civil. Do not cherish your opinion over my feelings. There's a vanity to candor that isn't really worth it. Be kind.

Richard Greenberg

#59. My earliest memories are of the civil rights era. My earliest experiences were rage.

Janine Di Giovanni

#60. As she rises, she will have to reconcile herself." "Reconcile - ?" "The savage and the civil,

Eleanor Catton

#61. As Carmen of the Guardia Civil remarked, the Guardia themselves provide enough crime to obviate the need for involving citizens.

S.H. Villa

#62. I don't know who you think you are, but I'm the king's niece, and the closest blood he has left, and you'll keep a civil tongue or I will cut it out.

Rebecca Hahn

#63. When men take pleasure in feeling their minds elevated with strong drink, and so indulge their appetite as to disorder their understandings, neglect their duty as members of a family or civil society, and cast off all regard to religion, their case is much to be pitied.

John Woolman

#64. Oh, well. I don't mind helping you to feel guilty if you must. On the other hand, I should point out that of all our various encounters, today is the only time you have favoured me with two civil words in sequence. I found it quite worrying.

Dorothy Dunnett

#65. If surveillance infiltrates our homes and personal relationships, that is a gross breach of our human and civil rights.

David Blunkett

#66. One's politics are part of one even when one is writing. But if I want to say anything about the state of civil society, I will write an essay. The responsibilities you feel as a novelist are literary ones, I think, not civic ones. And I think politicians are interesting to write about.

Thomas Mallon

#67. America's 1st Arab spring came in the guise of the Civil War ... when our nation couldn't stomach the abomination of slavery anymore. One can't help keep wondering ... when the next one will come.

Timothy Pina

#68. What drew me to both study and activism was the formative experience of the civil rights movement.

David Price

#69. I've heard people in the Middle East tell me that the most inspiring thing for them as people struggling against dictatorship in the Middle East is the memory of the civil rights movement.

Peter Beinart

#70. There are severe limitations on civil rights. In the international arena, Iran is turning into an isolated country, and the international community is becoming more hostile toward it.

Moshe Katsav

#71. The successes of the LGBT civil rights movement and the more prominent role openly gay people are playing in the public eye has actually turned up the temperature in middle schools and high schools for queer kids.

Dan Savage

#72. There's good reason to be excited. You have the first woman running who is qualified, and a very attractive African-American who has demonstrated crossover appeal. I got involved in politics 40 years ago during the civil rights movement, so yes, it's an exciting thing.

Joe Biden

#73. For the mob, habituated to feed at the expense of others, and to have its hopes of a livelihood in the property of its neighbors, as soon as it has got a leader sufficiently ambitious and daring, being excluded by poverty from the sweets of civil honors, produces a reign of mere violence.

Polybius

#74. Cushman, who assigned her to research McCarthy's assault on civil liberties, "wanted me to understand two things," Ruth recalls. "One is that we were betraying our most fundamental values, and, two, that legal skills could help make things better, could help to challenge what was going on.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

#75. When any civil government steps outside the mandate authorized by God Almighty, then that government does not have any further claim over its citizens.

Pat Robertson

#76. Civil disobedience can only lead to strength and purity.

Mahatma Gandhi

#77. Selfish men were ... trying to make capital for themselves out of the sacred cause of civil rights

Maria Weston Chapman

#78. There are too many countries where the values we take for granted in our civil servants simply do not exist. Seeing these values in action, applied with dedication by hardworking individuals, makes me proud to lead a service that is making life better for millions across Britain.

Gus O'Donnell

#79. A country that denies it, citizens, the opportunity to "civil liberties", better health care, schools, roads, electricity and water. Is a country on a brink of no return.

Henry Johnson Jr

#80. Statehood for the District of Columbia is the most important civil rights and social justice issue in America today.

Jesse Jackson

#81. We hold demonstrations and civil wars when inequities are discovered.

Catherynne M Valente

#82. After much deliberation, and after reviewing the legal, public policy and civil-rights questions presented, I support marriage equality for same-sex couples and believe that DOMA should be repealed.

Bob Casey Jr.

#83. When people think of slavery, they think of an era from the distant past. Grainy photographs from Civil War times. And yet it goes on.

Lisa Kristine

#84. Portland, Maine was the site of one of the northernmost battles of the Civil War.

Hank Bracker

#85. American high schools have physically imprisoned young people, stripped them of civil liberties and fed them a diet of p.c. pap.

Camille Paglia

#86. There's no work so tirin' as danglin' about an' starin' an' not rightly knowin' what you're goin' to do next; and keepin' your face i' smilin' order like a grocer o' market-day for fear people shouldna think you civil enough.

George Eliot

#87. From hence, let fierce contending nations know, what dire effects from civil discord flow.

Joseph Addison

#88. Civil government being the sole object of forming societies, its administration must be conducted by common consent.

Thomas Jefferson

#89. If today is anything like the typical day of the past 3 years, three American soldiers will die in Iraq or Afghanistan, the Taliban will get a little stronger in Afghanistan and the civil war will continue to be enhanced in Iraq.

Alcee Hastings

#90. As long as I am nothing but a ghost of the civil dead, I can do nothing.

Jack Henry Abbott

#91. Sometimes she plays a game now where she scatters her stuffed animals all over the living room. "Babies, babies," she mutters darkly as she covers them with white napkins. "Civil War Battlefield," we call it.

Jenny Offill

#92. When politicians and civil servants hear the word culture they feel for their blue pencils.

Lionel Esher

#93. Every society, all government, and every kind of civil compact therefore, is or ought to be, calculated for the general good and safety of the community.

George Mason

#94. A boy is content to be made into a civil man by caning, or any one of a number of other stratagems, but a girl, being disqualified by Nature, as it were, from such physical brutality, must remain forever something of a terra incognita. Don't you think?

Alan Bradley

#95. Be clamorous and leap all civil bounds Rather than make unprofited return.

William Shakespeare

#96. Eyes is the attempt to tell the story of the Civil Rights movement and to create an emotional, intellectual constituency. But what do you do after that? The black community doesn't have institutions that pick up such moments and preserve them.

Henry Hampton

#97. The sceptics, a kind of nomads, despising all settled culture of the land, broke up from time to time all civil society. Fortunately their number was small, and they could not prevent the old settlers from returning to cultivate the ground afresh, though without any fixed plan or agreement.

Immanuel Kant

#98. The first man, who, after enclosing a piece of ground, took it into his head to say, "This is mine," and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

#99. It was August 28th, 1963, and the greatest civil rights coalition in modern history had descended upon Washington. Hundreds of thousands of protesters trekked through the heat, stretching from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial.

Yvette Clarke

#100. Civil society must be strengthened to help raise awareness among people living with HIV, and those at risk, of their rights, and to ensure they have access to legal services and redress through the courts.

Shereen El Feki