To me, history ought to be a source of pleasure. It isn't just part of our civic responsibility. To me, it's an enlargement of the experience of being alive, just the way literature or art or music is."[The Title Always Comes Last; NEH 2003 Jefferson Lecturer interview profile] - David McCullough
Skepticism is the agent of reason against organized irrationalism--and is therefore one of the keys to human social and civic decency. - Stephen Jay Gould
Englishmen who came here had the spirit of close kinsmen in all they did; often were blood related and moved from place to place in clans strengthened by civic and ecclesiastical covenants. - Edward Pearson
It's a civic virtue to be exposed to things that appear to be outside your interest. In a complex world, almost everything affects you – that closes the loop on pecuniary self-interest. Customers are always right, but people aren't. - Clive Thompson
Unique among the nations, America recognized the source of our character as being godly and eternal, not being civic and temporal. And because we have understood that our source is eternal, America has been different. We have no king but Jesus. - John Ashcroft
We are in a mutually dependent society, called civilization, and government is the oil that keeps it running and the lifeblood that carries oxygen to the various parts of the civic body. - Jack Lessenberry
Paying tax should be framed as a glorious civic duty worthy of gratitude - not a punishment for making money. - Alain de Botton
Civic participants don't aim to make life better merely for members of the group. They want to improve even the lives of people who never participate... - Clay Shirky