Edmund Burke Quotes

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

The notion that public service requires men and women of good character now seems quaint.

I have never and never will do anything for the sake of popularity; he that steers by any other compass than his own sense of duty may be popular, but cannot be an honest and ... useful public servant.

No personal consideration should stand in the way of performing a public duty.

Bring back that better era of the republic in which, when men consecrated themselves to the public service, they utterly abnegated all selfish purposes.

It is the essence of responsibility to put the public good ahead of personal gain.

If you make the choice to serve the public, public service, then serve the public, not yourself.

Conscience has no more to do with gallantry than it has with politics.

Instead of taking a very high-paying type of law job or something that I might be able to do, I have been a legislator. That's what I do. I think it's an honorable profession - if you're honest and have integrity and work hard.

I am not in politics to make more money.

Everything I have done or attempted to do for Scotland has always been for her benefit, never my own and I defy anyone to prove otherwise.

I have no other view than to promote the public good, and am unambitious of honors not founded in the approbation of my Country.

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

We are here to serve our citizens and not our ambitions.

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.

Our profession is the chastest of all; even the shadow of a fault tarnishes the luster of our finest achievements.

Federal officials should serve without pay.

George W. Bush has shown himself to be a decent guy, not exploiting his former office to make top dollars giving speeches.

I never engaged in public affairs for my own interest, pleasure, envy, jealousy, avarice or ambition, or even the desire of fame

To an honest man, it is an honor to have remembered his duty.

Selflessness. Humility. Truthfulness. These are the three marks of an honorable man.

No man of honor, as the word is usually understood, did ever pretend that his honor obliged him to be chaste or temperate, to pay his creditors, to be useful to his country, to do good to mankind, to endeavor to be wise or learned, to regard his word, his promise, or his oath.

Truth is an homage that the good man pays to his own dignity.

I think service is honorable, and that was always inculcated in me.

Thus you are just not because you give what is owed, but because you do what is appropriate to you as the highest good.