Benjamin Franklin Quotes

Let public service be a proud and lively career. And let every man and woman who works in any area of our national government, in any branch, at any level, be able to say with pride and with honor in future years: I served the United States Government in that hour of our nation's need.

It’s hard to have a better job than the government, where you really do have an opportunity to have a broad reaching impact. Very few private sector jobs are going to offer you that.

When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property.

Those who labour in this publick Service, must also be maintained in a proportionable splendour; and must withall have the means to allure men with some kinde of reward, even in this life; forasmuch, as many heretofore followed even Christ himself, but for the Loaves he gave them.

No salaries should be allowed the public Officers, but that their necessary expenses should be defrayed. This would make Men, he said, more desirous of obtaining the Esteem of their Country-men, than avaricious or eager in the pursuit of wealth.

Two truths are all too often overshadowed in today's political discourse: Public service is a most honorable pursuit, and so is bipartisanship.

I would regard it as a great misfortune to run for Mayor and still more to be elected.

A public official must feel that he is a servant of the people. This is true of all public officials but perhaps in a special sense true of the Secretary of State, for our party lines stop at the water’s edge.

Public business … must always be done by somebody…. If wise men decline it, others will not; if honest men refuse it, others will not.

If they think its such a sacrifice to go into public service, then they should stay the heck out.

The trust that goes with public service is a heavy burden on those who would lead us.

Each duumvir shall have the right and the power to employ two lictors, an aide, two clerks, two summoners, a copyist, a crier, a soothsayer, and a flutist

Pubic business must be done. It will be done one way or another. If wise men refuse it, others will not. If honest men refuse it, others will not.

It is impossible for me, with any agreement to my sense of propriety, to accept any sort of compensation for services which I may endeavor to do upon a public account.

The business of serving the American people is a tough, and sometimes thankless task.

In a country where offices are created solely for the benefit of the people no one man has any more intrinsic right to official station than another. Offices were not established to give support to particular men at the public expense. No individual wrong is, therefore, done by removal, since neither appointment to nor continuance in office is a matter of right.

Those of us who get a chance, and many of us will, should and will be motivated to serve America well.

Public life is regarded as the crown of a career, and to young men it is the worthiest ambition. Politics is still the greatest and the most honorable adventure.

I've got the greatest job in the world. There's no other job in government where cause and effect is so tightly coupled where you can make a difference every day in so many different ways and in so many different people's lives. It's a great challenge.

There are higher things than mere professional success as a lawyer, and one of them is usefulness in a situation like that of New York, the great National problem of America.

When I talk to young people about entering government, I tell them, “Now think of the worst thing you’ve ever done in your life. Don’t tell me what it is. Now think about having it on the 10 o’clock news.”

I am an old public functionary.

We want to bring back to Washington people who are more interested in public service than they are in private gain.

Government is a trust, and the officers of the government are trustees; and both the trust and trustees are created for the benefit of the public.

Every citizen owes to the country a vigilant watch and close scrutiny of its public servants and a fair and reasonable estimate of their fidelity and usefulness.