A country cannot subsist without liberty, nor can liberty without virtue, nor can virtue without citizens. You will have everything if you train citizens; without this, you will mere have wicked slaves, beginning with the leaders of the state.
Jean Jacques Rousseau, “A Discourse on Political Economy,” (1755) in Basic Political Writings, trans. by Donald Cress (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987), 124
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It falls to each of us to be those anxious, jealous guardians of our democracy; to embrace the joyous task we’ve been given to continually try to improve this great nation of ours. Because for all our outward differences, we, in fact, all share the same proud title, the most important office in a democracy: Citizen.
President Barack Obama, Farewell Address, Chicago, January 10, 2017, https://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/10/politics/president-obama-farewell-speech/index.html, accessed on 18–19 January 2017
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I am against all of these restrictions. We do not have to act according to religious differences. Don’t you know, Gentlemen, in what century we live? Are Jews not paying all taxes and fulfilling all communal duties? Gentlemen, he who has duties must have rights, as well. You declare the Jews pariahs and forbid them all rights, arguing they do not deserve them. On the contrary, [I argue that] to dignify them we need to emancipate them, to elevate them from this degradation and to give them similar rights to others, to consider them Romanians, because what are they? They are Romanians like us. I cannot consider them anything else; a Jew, or any another foreigner, even a Chinese, or a son of Zoroaster, is my compatriot, as long as he is settled here and is not subject to any foreign authority.
Vasile Boerescu, Cestiunea Israelită înaintea Adunărei Generale a României din 1864. Desbaterile Legei Comunale. Extrase din Edițiunea oficială a buletinului Adunărei generale a României din 1864. Ședințele din 5–6 martie (Bucharest: Tipografia Statului, 1879), 1–2
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But, Gentlemen, the country belongs to the Romanians; they have admitted Jews and individuals of different nationalities and allowed them to practice any trade they wanted, and I think in exchange the Romanians have a right to ask of them duties and to give them as many rights as the Romanians want to, and not as many as the foreigners want. If they are not satisfied, foreigners are free to cross the border, the way is open, let them go and search the earth for other nations which will grant them more rights.
Andrei Prijbeanu, Cestiunea Israelită, 12
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There was a time when I would have liked to see the transformation of Romanian society after the fashion of France. But after a more serious study of the social sciences and an extended study of our national history, without changing my admiration for Western societies, my desire to imitate them, to follow them at any price, without method or planning, has weakened.
Ion C. Brătianu, Acte și cuvîntări (Bucharest: Cartea Românească, 1930–1941), vol. 1, part 1, 179
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