“Publicity, discussion, and agitation are necessary to accomplish any work of lasting benefit.”

—  Robert M. La Follette Sr.

Spoken in Evansville, IN (July 7, 1906), As quoted in Unreasonable Men: Theodore Roosevelt and the Republican Rebels Who Created Progressive Politics, Michael Wolraich (2014)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Publicity, discussion, and agitation are necessary to accomplish any work of lasting benefit." by Robert M. La Follette Sr.?
Robert M. La Follette Sr. photo
Robert M. La Follette Sr. 22
American politician 1855–1925

Related quotes

Samuel Johnson photo

“The law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the public.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Source: Anecdotes of Samuel Johnson (1786), p. 111

Sheikh Hasina photo

“The path you are following will not bring any benefit for the people. Instead you will lose public faith and confidence.”

Sheikh Hasina (1947) Prime Minister of Bangladesh

“The invention of an author is a species of property unknown to the common law of England. Its usages are immemorial; and the views of it tend to the benefit and advantage of the public with respect to the necessaries of life, and not to the improvement and graces of mind.”

Joseph Yates (judge) (1722–1770) English barrister and judge

4 Burr. Part IV., 2387.
Dissenting in Millar v Taylor (1769)

Calvin Coolidge photo

“Yet in time of stress and public agitation we have too great a tendency to disregard this policy and indulge in race hatred, religious intolerance, and disregard of equal rights. Such sentiments are bound to react upon those who harbor them. Instead of being a benefit they are a positive injury.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Ways to Peace (1926)
Context: Yet in time of stress and public agitation we have too great a tendency to disregard this policy and indulge in race hatred, religious intolerance, and disregard of equal rights. Such sentiments are bound to react upon those who harbor them. Instead of being a benefit they are a positive injury. We do not have to examine history very far before we see whole countries that have been blighted, whole civilizations that have been shattered by a spirit of intolerance. They are destructive of order and progress at home and a danger to peace and good will abroad. No better example exists of toleration than that which is exhibited by those who wore the blue toward those who wore the gray. Our condition today is not merely that of one people under one flag, but of a thoroughly united people who have seen bitterness and enmity which once threatened to sever them pass away, and a spirit of kindness and good will reign over them all.

James Russell Lowell photo

“To be told that we ought not to agitate the question of Slavery, when it is that which is forever agitating us, is like telling a man with the fever and ague on him to stop shaking and he will be cured. The discussion of Slavery is said to be dangerous, but dangerous to what?…Discussion is the very life of free institutions, the fruitful mother of all political and moral enlightenment, and yet the question of all questions must be tabooed.”

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat

The Election in November 1860 (1860)

Andrew Ure photo

“The present volume, introductory to a series of works in more ample detail, is submitted to the public as a specimen of the manner in which the author conceives technological subjects should be discussed.”

Andrew Ure (1778–1857) Scottish doctor and chemist

Source: The Philosophy of Manufactures, 1835, p. viii

Claude Monet photo

“Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter
Thomas Jefferson photo

“An hereditary chief, strictly limited, the right of war vested in the legislative body, a rigid economy of the public contributions, and absolute interdiction of all useless expenses, will go far towards keeping the government honest and unoppressive. But the only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted, when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to Marquis de la Fayette http://www.constitution.org/tj/jeff10.txt (November 4, 1823); in: The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Memorial Edition (ME) (Lipscomb and Bergh, editors), 20 Vols., Washington, D.C., 1903-04, Volume 15, page 491
1820s

“Public administration is the management of men and materials in the accomplishment of the purposes of the state.”

Leonard D. White (1891–1958) American historian

Source: Introduction to the Study of Public Administration, 1926, p. 5

Robert M. La Follette Sr. photo

“More than all, the citizen and his representative in Congress in time of war must maintain his right of free speech. More than in times of peace it is necessary that the channels for free public discussion of governmental policies shall be open and unclogged.”

Robert M. La Follette Sr. (1855–1925) American politician

Free Speech in Wartime (October 6, 1917)

Related topics