“All you owe the public is a good performance.”

— Humphrey Bogart

To Frank Sinatra, as quoted in The New York Times (17 May 1994)

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Humphrey Bogart 3

American actor 1899–1957

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“A good number of works owe their success to the mediocrity of their authors' ideas, which match the mediocrity of those of the general public.”

Nicolas Chamfort (1741–1794) French writer

Reflections

“Suffering — how divine it is, how misunderstood! We owe to it all that is good in us, all that gives value to life; we owe to it pity, we owe to it courage, we owe to it all the virtues.”

Anatole France (1844–1924) French writer

La souffrance! quelle divine méconnu! Nous lui devons tout ce qu'il ya de bon en nous, tout ce qui donne du prix à la vie; nous lui devons la pitié, nous lui devons le courage, nous lui devons toutes les vertus.
Le Jardin d'Épicure [The Garden of Epicurus<nowiki>]</nowiki> (1894)

“I owe the public nothing.”

J. P. Morgan (1837–1913) American financier, banker, philanthropist and art collector

Quoted in the New York World (11 May 1901) during the Northern Pacific Corner. See Morgan: American Financier by Jean Strouse

“An employer has no business with a man's personality. Employment is a specific contract calling for a specific performance… Any attempt to go beyond that is usurpation. It is immoral as well as an illegal intrusion of privacy. It is abuse of power. An employee owes no "loyalty," he owes no "love" and no "attitudes"--he owes performance and nothing else. …. The task is not to change personality, but to enable a person to achieve and to perform.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Source: 1960s - 1980s, MANAGEMENT: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1973), Part 1, p. 229

“Act well at the moment, and you have performed a good action to all eternity.”

Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801) Swiss poet

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 4

“Thank you, good sir, I owe you one.”

George Colman the Younger (1762–1836) English dramatist and writer

The Poor Gentleman, Act I, Scene 2, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“It is proper to the first cause to be one — for unity precedes multitude — and to surpass all things in power and goodness. Consequently all things must partake of it. For owing to its power nothing else can hinder it, and owing to its goodness it will not hold itself apart.”

Sallustius Roman philosopher and writer

V. On the First Cause
On the Gods and the Cosmos
Context: Next in order comes knowledge of the first cause and the subsequent orders of the Gods, then the nature of the world, the essence of intellect and of soul, then providence, fate, and fortune, then to see virtue and formed from them, and from what possible source evil came into the world.
Each of these subjects needs many long discussions; but there is perhaps no harm in stating them briefly, so that a disciple may not be completely ignorant about them.
It is proper to the first cause to be one — for unity precedes multitude — and to surpass all things in power and goodness. Consequently all things must partake of it. For owing to its power nothing else can hinder it, and owing to its goodness it will not hold itself apart.
If the first cause were soul, all things would possess soul. If it were mind, all things would possess mind. If it were being, all things would partake of being. And seeing this quality in all things, some men have thought that it was being. Now if things simply were, without being good, this argument would be true, but if things that are are because of their goodness, and partake in the good, the first thing must needs be both beyond-being and good. It is strong evidence of this that noble souls despise being for the sake of the good, when they face death for their country or friends or for the sake of virtue. — After this inexpressible power come the orders of the Gods.