Quotes about public
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Thomas Friedman photo
James A. Garfield photo
John Bright photo
Samuel R. Delany photo
Robert Kuttner photo

“In America, we build public housing by creating lucrative inducements to private developers, and then wax indignant at the public waste.”

Robert Kuttner (1943) American journalist

Source: The Economic Illusion (1984), Chapter 1, Equality and Efficiency, p. 37

Edward R. Murrow photo
Margaret Thatcher photo
Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud photo

“The Saudis are brought [to Iraq] in order to carry out bombings. Either they strap on explosives belts and blow up in public places, or else they drive a car, crash into some place, and blow it up.”

Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud (1933–2012) Saudi Arabian former crown prince

Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abd Al-Aziz to Saudi Preachers: Saudis Who Go to Iraq Are Used for Suicide Bombings http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/1496.htm, video clip http://switch5.castup.net/frames/20041020_MemriTV_Popup/video_480x360.asp?ai=214&ar=1996wmv&ak=null, June 2007

John C. Calhoun photo
Maithripala Sirisena photo
Edgar Wallace photo

“The day Mr. Reeder arrived at the Public Prosecutors' Office was indeed a day of fate for Mr. Lambton Green, Branch manager of the London Scottish and Midland Bank.”

Edgar Wallace (1875–1932) British crime writer, journalist and playwright

The Mind of Mr J. G. Reeder (2000), opening words

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon photo
Brian Cowen photo

“Hopefully that will be seen as a response, a leadership responding to an issue and therefore one's authority, while it's not as high if you didn't have the problem, it does mean that people say 'well he used his authority to come up with a solution in double-quick time that met with broader public acceptance.”

Brian Cowen (1960) Irish politician

Government comes under further Budget pressure, The Irish Times, 10 October 2008, 2010-06-12 http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2008/1023/breaking25.htm,
Explaining why there were radical Government alterations to a budgetary position in October 2008, with the alterations forced by angry public reaction.
2008

Stuart Hall photo

“It saddens me that the game has sold its soul to television. What we see now is a televisual game, and it cannot bear the weight of its publicity.”

Stuart Hall (1929–2014) sociologist and cultural theorist

Telegraph.co.uk http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/2317798/Stuart-Hall-enjoying-time-of-his-life.html (28 July 2007).

Robert Kuttner photo
A. James Gregor photo
Steve Sailer photo

“Better that an individual should suffer an injury than that the public should suffer an inconvenience.”

William Henry Ashurst (judge) (1725–1807) English judge

Russell v. The Mayor of Devon (1788), 1 T. R. 673.

V. V. Giri photo

“I have not permitted my constitutional niceties in the way of my free functioning in public…given frank expression to views concerning administration so often.”

V. V. Giri (1894–1980) Indian politician and 4th president of India

Source: Presidents of India, 1950-2003, P.83

Edward Snowden photo
Madison Grant photo
William Ewart Gladstone photo

“…the finances of the country is intimately associated with the liberties of the country. It is a powerful leverage by which English liberty has been gradually acquired. Running back into the depths of antiquities for many centuries, it lies at the root of English liberty, and if the House of Commons can by any possibility lose the power of the control of the grants of public money, depend upon it your very liberty will be worth very little in comparison.”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Hastings (17 March 1891), quoted in A. W. Hutton and H. J. Cohen (eds.), The Speeches of The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone on Home Rule, Criminal Law, Welsh and Irish Nationality, National Debt and the Queen's Reign. 1888–1891 (London: Methuen, 1902), p. 343.
1890s

Russ Feingold photo

“Opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling is bad public policy that has no place in the budget process,. The Budget Committee needs to leave drilling in the Arctic Refuge behind and focus on crafting this year’s budget package.”

Russ Feingold (1953) Wisconsin politician; three-term U.S. Senator

[Feingold Pushes to Keep Arctic Drilling out of Budget Process (press release), http://feingold.senate.gov/~feingold/releases/06/03/20060306.html, U.S. Senator Russ Feingold, 20 August 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20080412072316/http://feingold.senate.gov/~feingold/releases/06/03/20060306.html, April 12, 2008, March 6, 2006]
2006

Bell Hooks photo

“We resist hegemonic dominance of feminist thought by insisting that it is a theory in the making, that we must necessarily criticize, question, re-examine, and explore new possibilities. My persistent critique has been informed by my status as a member of an oppressed group, experience of sexist exploitation and discrimination, and the sense that prevailing feminist analysis has not been the force shaping my feminist consciousness. This is true for many women. There are white women who had never considered resisting male dominance until the feminist movement created an awareness that they could and should. My awareness of feminist struggle was stimulated by social circumstance. Growing up in a Southern, black, father-dominated, working class household, I experienced (as did my mother, my sisters, and my brother) varying degrees of patriarchal tyranny and it made me angry-it made us all angry. Anger led me to question the politics of male dominance and enabled me to resist sexist socialization. Frequently, white feminists act as if black women did not know sexist oppression existed until they voiced feminist sentiment. They believe they are providing black women with "the" analysis and "the" program for liberation. They do not understand, cannot even imagine, that black women, as well as other groups of women who live daily in oppressive situations, often acquire an awareness of patriarchal politics from their lived experience, just as they develop strategies of resistance (even though they may not resist on a sustained or organized basis). These black women observed white feminist focus on male tyranny and women's oppression as if it were a "new" revelation and felt such a focus had little impact on their lives. To them it was just another indication of the privileged living conditions of middle and upper class white women that they would need a theory to inform them that they were "oppressed." The implication being that people who are truly oppressed know it even though they may not be engaged in organized resistance or are unable to articulate in written form the nature of their oppression. These black women saw nothing liberatory in party line analyses of women's oppression. Neither the fact that black women have not organized collectively in huge numbers around the issues of "feminism" (many of us do not know or use the term) nor the fact that we have not had access to the machinery of power that would allow us to share our analyses or theories about gender with the American public negate its presence in our lives or place us in a position of dependency in relationship to those white and non-white feminists who address a larger audience.”

Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist

Source: (1984), Chapter 1: Black Women: Shaping Feminist Theory, p. 10.

Anthony Crosland photo
André Gide photo

“The artist who is after success lets himself be influenced by the public. Generally such an artist contributes nothing new, for the public acclaims only what it already knows, what it recognizes.”

André Gide (1869–1951) French novelist and essayist

“Characters,” p. 306
Pretexts: Reflections on Literature and Morality (1964)

Jean Sibelius photo

“Whereas most other modern composers are engaged in manufacturing cocktails of every hue and description, I offer the public cold spring water.”

Jean Sibelius (1865–1957) Finnish composer of the late Romantic period

Cecil Gray Sibelius: The Symphonies (London: Oxford University Press, 1935) p. 56.
Of his Symphony No. 6 (1923).

Antonin Scalia photo
Francis George photo

“When in public, Hillary smiles and acts graciously. As soon as the cameras are gone, her angry personality, nastiness, and imperiousness become evident … Hillary Clinton can make Richard Nixon look like Mahatma Gandhi.”

Ronald Kessler (1943) American journalist

Ronald Kessler, describing interviews with Secret Service agents serving Secretary Clinton, in First Family Detail (2015)

Alexander von Humboldt photo
Joan Robinson photo

“Michal Kalecki's claim to priority of publication is indisputable.”

Joan Robinson (1903–1983) English economist

Source: Contributions to Modern Economics (1978), Chapter 6, Kalecki And Keynes, p. 55

Arnold Toynbee photo
Stella Vine photo

“I wanted my work to be seen for free in a public space, I want to be up there with Pollock and de Kooning, one of the big boys.”

Stella Vine (1969) English artist

Kennedy, Maev. "Will these tragic celebs bring art a new audience?" http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/news/story/0,,2126195,00.html, "The Guardian" (2007-07-14)

“My own views on all matters of public revenue and public expenditure are conditioned by an acute appreciation of whose is the sacrifice that produces public revenue and to whom accrues the benefit of public spending.”

John James Cowperthwaite (1915–2006) British colonial administrator

March 24, 1966, page 216.
Official Report of Proceedings of the Hong Kong Legislative Council

Ai Weiwei photo
Michelle Obama photo

“Barack has lead by example. When we took our trip to Africa and visited his home country in Kenya, we took a public HIV test—for the very point of showing folks in Kenya that there is nothing to be embarrassed about in getting tested.”

Michelle Obama (1964) lawyer, writer, wife of Barack Obama and former First Lady of the United States

Speech to the Gay & Lesbian Leadership Council of the Democratic National Committee in New York City (June 2008), quoted in "Did Michelle say Barack born in Kenya?" http://www.wnd.com/2010/04/136769/ by Jerome R. Corsi, WND.com (5 April 2010). Michelle says Barack's Home country is Kenya https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBJihJBePcs (YouTube video)
2000s

Dilip Sankarreddy photo

“The greatest tragedy of the current Indian politics is the lack of public participation in political donations.”

Dilip Sankarreddy Business professional

From the 2013 speech at the Harvard India Conference conducted by Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School of Government at Boston, USA.
Great Andhra, 2013. http://www.greatandhra.com/viewnews.php?id=44770&cat=10&scat=25 (retrieved Apr. 29, 2013)
Politics

Margaret Chase Smith photo
Richard Stallman photo

“Dubya has nominated another caveman for a federal appeals court. Refreshingly, the Democratic Party is organizing opposition.
The nominee is quoted as saying that if the choice of a sexual partner were protected by the Constitution, "prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia" also would be. He is probably mistaken, legally — but that is unfortunate. All of these acts should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness.
Some rules might be called for when these acts directly affect other people's interests. For incest, contraception could be mandatory to avoid risk of inbreeding. For prostitution, a license should be required to ensure prostitutes get regular medical check-ups, and they should have training and support in insisting on use of condoms. This will be an advance in public health, compared with the situation today.
For necrophilia, it might be necessary to ask the next of kin for permission if the decedent's will did not authorize it. Necrophilia would be my second choice for what should be done with my corpse, the first being scientific or medical use. Once my dead body is no longer of any use to me, it may as well be of some use to someone. Besides, I often enjoy rhinophytonecrophilia”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

nasal sex with dead plants
Stallman archives (28 June 2003) https://stallman.org/archives/2003-may-aug.html
2000s

David Morrison photo
Andrew Wiles photo
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury photo
Sinclair Lewis photo
Dwight D. Eisenhower photo
Jagadish Chandra Bose photo
John Palfrey photo
Adam Smith photo
George Bernard Shaw photo

“Any sort of plain speaking is better than the nauseous sham good fellowship our democratic public men get up for shop use.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Franklyn, in Pt. II : The Gospel of the Brothers Barnabas
1920s, Back to Methuselah (1921)

Sir Frederick Pollock, 1st Baronet photo
Edward Bernays photo
Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman photo
Johannes Grenzfurthner photo
Dana Gioia photo
Camille Paglia photo
Will Eisner photo
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury photo
Hunter S. Thompson photo

“Any lawyer who says there's no such thing as rape should be hauled out to a public place by three large perverts and buggered at high noon, with all of his clients watching.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

1960s, Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs (1966)

Dhyan Chand photo
Matt Rosendale photo
Andrei Lankov photo
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg photo
William Moulton Marston photo

“Not even the church is so powerfully equipped to serve the public psychologically as is the motion picture company.”

William Moulton Marston (1893–1947) American psychologist, lawyer, inventor and comic book writer

Henry W. Levy, "Professor to Cure Scenarios with Wrong Emotional Content: Dabbled in Movies While at Harvard; Now Sought By Hollywood with Offer of Favorable Contract", New York University News January 1929; Jill Lepore, The Secret History of Wonder Woman (2014), p. 137.

Paul Tsongas photo
Michel Foucault photo

“The disappearance of public executions marks therefore the decline of the spectacle; but it also marks a slackening of the hold on the body.”

Source: Discipline and Punish (1977), Chapter One, The Spectacle of the Scaffold

Charles Evans Hughes photo

“Equally unavailing is the insistence that the statute is designed to prevent the circulation of scandal which tends [p722] to disturb the public peace and to provoke assaults and the commission of crime. Charges of reprehensible conduct, and in particular of official malfeasance, unquestionably create a public scandal, but the theory of the constitutional guaranty is that even a more serious public evil would be caused by authority to prevent publication. To prohibit the intent to excite those unfavorable sentiments against those who administer the Government is equivalent to a prohibition of the actual excitement of them, and to prohibit the actual excitement of them is equivalent to a prohibition of discussions having that tendency and effect, which, again, is equivalent to a protection of those who administer the Government, if they should at any time deserve the contempt or hatred of the people, against being exposed to it by free animadversions on their characters and conduct. There is nothing new in the fact that charges of reprehensible conduct may create resentment and the disposition to resort to violent means of redress, but this well understood tendency did not alter the determination to protect the press against censorship and restraint upon publication. […] The danger of violent reactions becomes greater with effective organization of defiant groups resenting exposure, and if this consideration warranted legislative interference with the initial freedom of publication, the constitutional protection would be reduced to a mere form of words.”

Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948) American judge

Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697 (1931).
Judicial opinions

Simon Newcomb photo
Michael Lewis photo
Sara García photo

“Spanish for, One day I got tired and I called him and told him my son come here, do not believe that being a star consists of being late for calls, being a star means arriving on time for his call, doing his duty, giving everything what you have to praise the public and come out triumphant as far as you can, that is to be a star but not to be late for the calls”

Sara García (1895–1980) Mexican actress

Un día me canse y lo llame y le dije óigame hijito venga para acá, no se crea usted que ser estrella consiste en llegar tarde a los llamados, el ser estrella consiste en llegar a tiempo a su llamado, cumplir con su deber, dar todo lo que se tiene para alagar al publico y salir triunfante hasta donde se pueda, eso es ser estrella pero no llegar tarde a los llamados.
Sara responding after being asked about some passages of Pedro Infante's life in his artistic career that she remembered with more heart and couldn't forget. SARA GARCIA PARTE 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HyjqMuf5Vs

Andrea Dworkin photo
Samuel Butler photo
Francis Escudero photo

“As the lists multiply in number and the lists themselves grow longer, we should ask ourselves who the real victims are in the confusion sowed by Ms. Napoles and those who supposedly want to shed light on the Pork Barrel Scam. Those who have been unfairly dragged into this mess are not the real victims; these lists and affidavits are baseless and lack the kind of evidentiary support that can establish cases against many of those who have been named, myself included. The real victims here are our citizens. After learning the scale at which funds allocated to help them have been efficiently and systematically plundered, our people now seek redress. As it stands, there is an opportunity for our people to obtain justice as the Ombudsman already found probable cause which concluded to filing of the cases. Again, I assure the public that I have never allocated public money using the PDAF or budgetary incentives to any fictitious NGOs set up by Ms. (Janet) Napoles nor have I dealt with her to supposedly solicit or receive campaign funds. Such claim is a total falsity and runs counter to common sense because as early as October of 2009, I already withdrew any intention to run for the presidency and in 2010, I was not even a candidate for any elective position. And by Ms. Napoles’ own list, I am the only one who did not allocate any funds to her foundations from my PDAF releases. Let's keep our eye on the ball and remain vigilant to ensure the conviction of those who truly deserve to be punished for the misuse of public funds. Let us persuade our authorities to focus on evidence, testimonial or otherwise, that has probative value to avoid distractions.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

Escudero, F. [Francis]. (2014, May 28). Retrieved from Official Facebook Page of Francis Escudero https://www.facebook.com/senchizescudero/posts/10152473011595610/
2014, Facebook

Agatha Christie photo
James Eastland photo

“I believe it’s a publicity stunt.”

James Eastland (1904–1986) American politician

About case of these missing civil rights workers (also according to Johnson)
Unsourced

Carl Sagan photo
Richard Rorty photo
Ben Elton photo
William Ewart Gladstone photo
Derren Brown photo
Alex Kozinski photo

“Appellate review is not a magic wand and we undermine public confidence in the judicial process when we make it look like it is.”

Alex Kozinski (1950) American judge

Concluding words of dissent from a denial of rehearing en banc in United States v. Ziegler http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=995042337184945695, 2007.

Ai Weiwei photo

“In an environment without public platform nor protection, the individual is the most powerful and most responsible.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

Ai Weiwei on Twitter in English (beta). http://aiwwenglish.tumblr.com/ (January 10, 2011)
2010-, Twitter feeds, 2010-12

Edgar Rice Burroughs photo

“I had gone thoroughly through some of the all-fiction magazines and I made up my mind that if people were paid for writing such rot as I read I could write stories just as rotten. Although I had never written a story, I knew absolutely that I could write stories just as entertaining and probably a lot more so than any I chanced to read in those magazines.
I knew nothing about the technique of story writing, and now, after eighteen years of writing, I still know nothing about the technique, although with the publication of my new novel, Tarzan and the Lost Empire, there are 31 books on my list. I had never met an editor, or an author or a publisher. l had no idea of how to submit a story or what I could expect in payment. Had I known anything about it at all I would never have thought of submitting half a novel; but that is what I did.
Thomas Newell Metcalf, who was then editor of The All-Story magazine, published by Munsey, wrote me that he liked the first half of a story I had sent him, and if the second half was as good he thought he might use it. Had he not given me this encouragement, I would never have finished the story, and my writing career would have been at an end, since l was not writing because of any urge to write, nor for any particular love of writing. l was writing because I had a wife and two babies, a combination which does not work well without money.”

Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875–1950) American writer

How I Wrote the Tarzan Books (1929)

Calvin Coolidge photo