Public Interests Quotes

Political parties exist to secure responsible government and to execute the will of the people. From these great tasks both of the old parties have turned aside. Instead of instruments to promote the general welfare they have become the tools of corrupt interests, which use them impartially to serve their selfish purposes.

Publicity and openness, honest and complete -- that is the prime condition for the health of every society, and ours, too. The man who does not want them in our country is indifferent to his fatherland and thinks only about his own gain.

What people do in their private lives, these are not big issues that our country's dealing with.

Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: 1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes. 2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depositary of the public interests. In every country these two parties exist, and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves.

By the time I finished doing regular practice, most of my work was in international regulatory law, so I was advising foreign governments about their responsibility and roles in things like public inquiries.

I see my task as serving the majority of people. The question is, how do you find out what they want, how best to serve them? My answer is to stay close to ordinary people because, at heart, I am one of them.

A due regard for individual property rights does not preclude assigning the state its share in national resources.

Society ... can afford to grant more than before because its interests have become the innermost drives of its citizens.

Congress is a party whose both hands are with the common people.

It is not much to be wondered at if impatient or disappointed reformers, groaning under the impediments opposed to the most salutary public improvements by the ignorance, the indifference, the intractableness, the perverse obstinacy of a people, and the corrupt combinations of selfish private interests armed with the powerful weapons afforded by free institutions, should at times sigh for a strong hand to bear down all these obstacles, and compel a recalcitrant people to be better governed.

I do not represent public opinion. I represent the public. There is a wide difference between the two, between the real interests of the public and the public’s opinion of those interests.

Private property is a creature of society, and is subject to the calls of that society, wherever its necessities shall require it…

I am genuinely independent of the big monied men in all matters where I think the interests of the public are concerned, and probably I am the first President of recent times of whom this could be truthfully said.... But where I do not grant any favors to these big monied men which I do not think the country requires that they should have, it is out of the question for me to expect them to grant favors to me in return... The sum of this is that I can make no private or special appeals to them, and I am at my wits' end how to proceed.

The press never accepts at face value that the President is taking a certain action because he wants to create jobs or because he believes that it is in the best interests of the American people or that he is genuinely committed to making life better for people.

The more the President cares about things, the more the other people in the government will attend to them.

Not but that crimes of a strictly legal character fall within the scope of the power…; but that it has a more enlarged operation, and reaches what are aptly termed political offences, growing out of personal misconduct or gross neglect, or usurpation, or habitual disregard of the public interests, in the discharge of the duties of political office

Policy making is not as easy as slurping down cabbage soup.

Restoring and maintaining a great nation's fiscal health will require not just sound arguments and an engaged public but something more. It will require an electoral system that encourages our representatives to place the long-term interests of the public ahead of parochial special interests.

The responsibility of a public official is to make the country work!

If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists - to protect them and to promote their common welfare - all else is lost.

The state must be the first to be organized and totally committed to serving the interests of the people.

The question Americans should ask is not whether a candidate is affiliated with a particular faith but rather whether that candidate's faith makes it more likely he or she will support policies that align with their values.

The people’s priorities are our priorities. The people’s concerns are our concerns.

Legally speaking, the term 'public rights' is as vague and indefinite as are the terms 'public health,' 'public good,' 'public welfare,' and the like. It has no legal meaning, except when used to describe the separate, private, individual rights of a greater or less number of individuals.

Government is but A TRUSTEE--for public, not for private purposes. You must trust your own manhood. You must trust your own foresight, and lay up against a rainy day. You must be educated by hardship, if need be. Government did not beget you, and is not responsible for you save against injustice