“One reads for pleasure… it is not a public duty.”
Source: The Uncommon Reader
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Alan Bennett 56
English actor, author 1934Related quotes
“Reading well is one of the great pleasures that solitude can afford you.”
"Academe and I" (May 1972), in The Tragedy of the Moon (1973), p. 224
General sources
“The pleasure of all reading is doubled when one lives with another who shares the same books.”
Letter to Ottoline Morrell (January 1922)
“The search for the truth is the noblest of occupations, and its publication a duty.”
La recherche de la vérité est la plus noble des occupations, et sa publication un devoir.
Pt. 4, ch. 2
De l’Allemagne [Germany] (1813)
“Disregard public opinion when it interferes with your duty.”
Misattributed, Jackson's personal book of maxims
A Few Maxims for the Instruction of the Over-Educated (1894)
No Place to Hide (2014)
Source: No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State
Context: Democracy requires accountability and consent of the governed, which is only possible if citizens know what is being done in their name. [... ] Conversely, the presumption is that the government, with rare exceptions, will not know anything that law-abiding citizens are doing. [... ] Transparency is for those who carry out public duties and exercise public power. Privacy is for everyone else.
Penguin Books 2015 edition, page 209.