Public Interest Quotes

To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.

In a land where so many have a right to air their opinions and where so many interest are bound to collide and have to be reconciled, unanimity can hardly be expected. We were agreed on the evils but differed on the remedies, and amidst this contention of parties, the very zeal and energy of the best citizens became damaging to the public interest.

Government ought to be all outside and no inside.... Everybody knows that corruption thrives in secret places, and avoids public places, and we believe it a fair presumption that secrecy means impropriety.

Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it.

When statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties, they lead their country by a short route to chaos.

I am against market fundamentalism. I think this propaganda that government involvement is always bad has been very successful - but also very harmful to our society.

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

The masses are our masters; and for every one who looks facts in the face his existence has become dependent on them, so that the thought of them must control his doings, his cares, and his duties.

Failure, it is thought, is what sells, and what people want to hear and read about. I am not so sure.

Are you a politician who says to himself, 'I will use my country for my own benefit?' If so, you are naught but a parasite living on the flesh of others. Or are you a devoted patriot, who whispers in the ear of his inner self, I love to serve my country as a faithful servant." Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country?

Don't make government work like a business... it's inherently inefficient.

The earth is given as a common stock for man to labour and live on. If for the encouragement of industry we allow it to be appropriated, we must take care that other employment to those excluded from the appropriation.

The common good is chiefly guaranteed when personal rights and duties are maintained. The chief concern of civil authorities must therefore be to ensure that these rights are acknowledged, respected, coordinated with other rights, defended and promoted

All government is a trust. Every branch of government is a trust, and immemorially acknowledged to be so.

Individual interests now trump any consideration of the good of society just as all problems are ultimately laid at the door of the solitary individual, whose fate is shaped by forces far beyond his or her capacity for personal responsibility.

The function of a newspaper in a democracy is to stand as a sort of chronic opposition to the reigning quacks.

Mystery makes movie stars! If you see someone on the cover of the weeklies all the time, why would you want to pay to see them in a movie?

Government of the people and for the people.

I should think that people would be more interested in politics and all that is happening, rather than two lovebirds who are looking to wed. I think it's very nice that in an age when love is so scarce that people are willing to gamble on getting married.

While service in the Department of Justice is itself one of the highest forms of public service, the Department further strides to increase access to justice for all and to strengthen our communities.

Taxation, for example, is eternally lively; it concerns nine-tenths of us more directly than either smallpox or golf, and has just as much drama in it; moreover, it has been mellowed and made gay by as many gaudy, preposterous theories

As long as I am your president, I am going to be president of all the people.

Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from any body.

For me, public service is an honor, and I have the ultimate respect for the rule of law.

The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything. Except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesman-like habits, supplies their demands.