George Bush: "Remarks to Members of the Senior Executive Service," January 26, 1989. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=16628&st
Context: The Government is here to serve, but it cannot replace individual service. And shouldn't all of us who are public servants also set an example of service as private citizens? So, I want to ask all of you, and all the appointees in this administration, to do what so many of you already do: to reach out and lend a hand. Ours should be a nation characterized by conspicuous compassion, generosity that is overflowing and abundant.
“What I have desired to do is to make the people of Boston realize that the most important office, and the one which all of us can and should fill, is that of private citizen. The duties of the office of private citizen cannot under a republican form of government be neglected without serious injury to the public.”
Statement to a reporter in the Boston Record, 14 April 1903. (quoted in Alpheus Thomas Mason, Brandeis: A Free Man's Life (1946), p. 122.)
Commonly paraphrased as "The most important office is that of the private citizen" or "The most important political office is that of the private citizen", and sometimes misattributed to his dissenting opinion in Olmstead v. United States.
Extra-judicial writings
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Louis Brandeis 45
American Supreme Court Justice 1856–1941Related quotes
2012, Yangon University Speech (November 2012)
1960s, Statement on the Freedom of Information Act (1966)
Chap. 2. Rights and the Neutral States
Democracy's Discontent (1996)
Source: Reflections on public administration, 1947, p. 19
Resignation letter, 1857
Roberts v. Gwyrfai District Council (1899), L. R. 2 C. D. 614.
Source: https://www.vanguardngr.com/2021/10/nigeria-61-eie-11-light-hope-power-and-voice-opinion/ Speaking about Nigeria (October 18 2021 )
2017, Farewell Address (January 2017)
Context: It falls to each of us to be those anxious, jealous guardians of our democracy; to embrace the joyous task we've been given to continually try to improve this great nation of ours. Because for all our outward differences, we, in fact, all share the same proud title, the most important office in a democracy: Citizen. Citizen.