Quotes about public
page 39

“It's a forced disappearance...All those who have disappeared are related to the Causeway Bay bookshop and this bookshop was famous, not only for the sale, but also for the publication and circulation of a series of sensitive books.”

Albert Ho (1951) Hong Kong politician

Source: January 6, 2016 Briton confirmed missing as mystery deepens over Hong Kong booksellers https://edition.cnn.com/2016/01/05/asia/hong-kong-china-missing-booksellers/index.html

Books, Relation ships

“Upon going through the text the reader will notice how completely contrary to the facts are the cliches which are bandied about in public discourse in India, and which as a consequence so many have by now internalised....”

Arun Shourie (1941) Indian journalist and politician

A secular agenda, 1993

“Baby, I've never been drunk in public and I never run around with men half my age. The dames I started out with are all batty today. They had their looks and nothing more and now they think they're finished.”

Yvonne De Carlo (1922–2007) Canadian-American actress, dancer, and singer

Source: As quoted in "A girl no longer, but . . . De Carlo's a beauty still" (1975)

Baby, Thinking, Age, Men

“You want to know about the title, right. The most beautiful girl in the world. . . It was a straight publicity thing but it ballooned. Of course, I never could wear blue jeans to the market after that. I had a reputation to uphold.”

Yvonne De Carlo (1922–2007) Canadian-American actress, dancer, and singer

Source: As quoted in " A girl no longer, but . . . De Carlo's a beauty still https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/459624330/" (1975)

World, Beauty, Girl

“The whole justification for permitting the corporate executive to be selected by the stockholders is that the executive is an agent serving the interests of his principal. This justification disappears when the corporate executive imposes taxes and spends the proceeds for “social” purposes. He becomes in effect a public employe, a civil servant, even though he remains in name an employe of private enterprise. On grounds of political principle, it is intolerable that such civil servants—insofar as their actions in the name of social responsibility are real and not just window‐dressing—should be selected as they are now. If they are to be civil servants, then they must be selected through a political process. If they are to impose taxes and make expenditures to foster “social” objectives, then political machinery must be set up to guide the assessment of taxes and to determine through a political process the objectives to be served. This is the basic reason why the doctrine of “social responsibility” involves the acceptance of the socialist view that political mechanisms, not market mechanisms, are the appropriate way to determine the allocation of scarce resources to alternative uses.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

“A Friedman doctrine‐- The Social Responsibility Of Business Is to Increase Its Profits” (Sept. 1970)

Way, Making love

“The view has been gaining widespread acceptance that corporate officials and labor leaders have a "social responsibility"... beyond serving the interests of their stockholders or their members. This view shows a fundamental misconception of the character of a free economy. In such an economy there is one and only one social responsibility of business—to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception fraud. Similarly, the "social responsibility" of labor leaders is to serve the interests of the members of their unions. It is the responsibility of the rest of us to establish a framework of law such that an individual... is, to quote Adam Smith... "led by an invisible hand... I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good."”

Milton Friedman book Capitalism and Freedom

Source: Capitalism and Freedom (1962), Ch. 8 Monopoly and the Social Responsibility of Business and Labor, p. 133

Law, Business, Fraud, Game

“The merchant sends the buyer far afield with instructions to invest... in... staples or novelties, as he thinks will interest the home public. He risks his money and a certain amount of prestige upon the judgment of the buyer... Much merchandise begins to depreciate from the day it arrives; practically none increases in value. The buyer then must learn to buy enough and not too much; to buy what will give satisfaction..; to pay not too much for what he buys; to know qualities and values... All this carries with it a certain speculative risk, but so certain does his judgment become, that the house conducted on scientific lines can estimate to a fraction of one per cent.”

Harry Gordon Selfridge (1858–1947) America born English businessman

The Romance of Commerce (1918), A Representative Business of the Twentieth Century

Money, Home, Housing, Learning

“[T]he great Distributing House or Department Store... may be permitted to represent the modern spirit of organization. It is to the writer the most interesting of all forms of business, and by its constant and necessary publicity it occupies perhaps the most conspicuous place in the public mind. It usually employs the greatest number of people... It frequently... pays out in salaries and wages a larger sum weekly than any other single business, and is more often approached by those seeking opportunity to work than any other. Its daily transactions are large in volume, its cash handled is very great. It is intimately associated with every family in the community in supplying them with the necessities of life, and thus... enters into the daily life of the city in which it is.”

Harry Gordon Selfridge (1858–1947) America born English businessman

The Romance of Commerce (1918), A Representative Business of the Twentieth Century

Family, Housing, Business, People

“In English country towns, if the public houses do not actually outnumber the inhabitants, they all do an excellent trade. It is only when they are two to one that hard times hit them and set the innkeepers to blaming the government.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Something Fresh

Something Fresh (1915)

Time, Housing, Country

“Monopoly of public policy by experts—trade negotiators, government bureaucrats, think tankers, professors, journalists—helped create the populist backlash that empowered Trump.”

George Packer (1960) American journalist and writer

A Political Obituary for Donald Trump (2020)

Thinking, Help

“Co-signed as an American. We should expect all elected officials, regardless of party, and all public figures to not traffic in anti-Semitism.”

Chelsea Clinton (1980) daughter of Bill and Hillary Clinton

10 February 2019 https://twitter.com/chelseaclinton/status/1094773371823366145 response to Batya Ungar-Sargon telling Ilhan Omar "Please learn how to talk about Jews in a non-anti-Semitic way."

“One thing we have endeavoured to observe most scrupulously, namely, never to depart from the strictest facts and, in dealing with the difficult questions that have arisen during the year, we hope that we have used the utmost moderation possible under the circumstances. Our duty is very simple and plain. We want to serve the community, and in our own humble way to serve the Empire. We believe in the righteousness of the cause, which it is our privilege to espouse. We have an abiding faith in the mercy of the Almighty God, and we have firm faith in the British Constitution. That being so, we should fail in our duty if we wrote anything with a view to hurt. Facts we would always place before our readers, whether they are palatable or not, and it is by placing them constantly before the public in their nakedness that the misunderstanding between the two communities in South Africa can be removed.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Source: Indian Opinion (1 October 1903)

Hurt, God, Faith, Question

“I’m a bit of a lone wolf…I don’t give interviews or do publicity unless I have a book out—too distracting. My desk is where the real work happens.”

Donna Tartt (1963) American writer

On her philosophy regarding interviews and publicity in “Donna Tartt on The Goldfinch, Inspiration, and the Perils of Literary Fame” https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/arts-and-culture/a29022016/donna-tartt-goldfinch-interview/ in Town & Country (2019 Sep 12)

Wolf, Books

“I am talking about the accumulated evidence of the last 5 years that our present tax system, developed as it was, in good part, during World War II to restrain growth, exerts too heavy a drag on growth in peace time; that it siphons out of the private economy too large a share of personal and business purchasing power; that it reduces the financial incentives for personal effort, investment, and risk-taking. In short, to increase demand and lift the economy, the Federal Government's most useful role is not to rush into a program of excessive increases in public expenditures, but to expand the incentives and opportunities for private expenditures. [...] While rising demand will expand imports, new investment in more efficient productive facilities will aid exports and a new economic climate could both draw capital from abroad and keep capital here at home.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Address and Question and Answer Period at the Economic Club of New York

Home, Peace, Drawing, Time

“What we need to think about perhaps for Mission Blue is increasing the biologging capacity. How is it that we can actually take this type of activity elsewhere? And then finally -- to basically get the message home -- maybe use live links from animals such as blue whales and white sharks. Make killer apps, if you will. A lot of people are excited when sharks actually went under the Golden Gate Bridge. Let's connect the public to this activity right on their iPhone. That way we do away with a few internet myths. So we can save the bluefin tuna. We can save the white shark. We have the science and technology. Hope is here. Yes we can. We need just to apply this capacity further in the oceans.”

Barbara Block (1958) American marine biologist

Source: Tagging tuna in the deep ocean https://www.ted.com/talks/barbara_block_tagging_tuna_in_the_deep_ocean (April 2010)

Home, Hope, People, Animals

“I'm interested in truth, I like science. But truth's a menace, science is a public danger. As dangerous as it's been beneficent. … It's curious … to read what people in the time of Our Ford used to write about scientific progress. They seemed to imagine that it could go on indefinitely, regardless of everything else. Knowledge was the highest good, truth the supreme value; all the rest was secondary and subordinate. True, ideas were beginning to change even then. Our Ford himself did a great deal to shift the emphasise from truth and beauty to comfort and happiness. Mass production demanded the shift. Universal happiness keeps the wheels steadily turning; truth and beauty can't. And, of course, whenever the masses seized political power, then it was happiness rather than truth and beauty that mattered. Still, in spite of everything, unrestricted scientific resarch was still permitted. People still went on talking about truth and beauty as though they were sovereign goods. Right up to the time of the Nine Years' War. That made them change their tune all right. What's the point of truth or beauty or knowledge when the anthrax bombs are popping all around you? That was when science first began to be controlled — after the Nine Years' War. People were ready to have even their appetites controlled then. Anything for a quiet life. We've gone on controlling ever since. It hasn't been very good for truth, of course. But it's been very good for happiness. One can't have something for nothing. Happiness has got to be paid for.”

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World

Source: Brave New World (1932), Mustapha Mond, in Ch. 16

Imagination, Reading, Time, War

“The world's problems are pressing in on us all. The scale and impact of human activities now affects a great portion of the global resources important to human welfare. These activities are putting growing, often destructive pressure on the global environment, pressure that appears likely to increase as human numbers swell toward the doubling of the world's population that evidently lies ahead. These pressures can spawn or aggravate conflict that. in a world with so much destructive weaponry, generates important national security problems. Great changes are necessary to help ensure a humane future for the generations to come.
Most of the world's scientific community and many people in the environmental movement are aware of the gravity of the problems. Yet despite sober warnings from these and other groups, in both the industrial and the developing world, re- medial efforts frequently appear powerless and ineffectual. The scientific community has not taken a sustained, powerful role in the public arena where this great cluster of issues is debated and where the problems must be resolved. There is much more that our community can contribute to assessment, warning, and proposals for new patterns of behavior.”

Henry Way Kendall (1926–1999) American physicist

Source: A Distant Light : Scientists and Public Policy (2000), Introduction, p. 1

Future, People, Help, Communication

“No lawmaker should be cashing in on their public service and selling their contacts and expertise to the highest bidder... don't think it should be legal at ALL to become a corporate lobbyist if you've served in Congress. Keeping it real, the elephant in the room with passing a lobbying ban on members requires a nearly-impossible discussion about congressional pay.”

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (1989) American politician

AOC Calls for Ban on Revolving Door as Study Shows Two-Thirds of Recently Departed Lawmakers Now K Street Lobbyists https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/05/30/aoc-calls-ban-revolving-door-study-shows-two-thirds-recently-departed-lawmakers-nowCommon Dreams, Eoin Higgins,] (30 May 2019) 2019

Thinking

“Every election we know features some illegality and irregularity, and of course that’s unacceptable. I support strong state-led voting reforms. Last year’s bizarre pandemic procedures must not become the new norm, but my colleagues, nothing before us proves illegality anywhere near the massive scale, the massive scale that would have tipped the entire election, nor can public doubt alone justify a radical break when the doubt itself was incited without any evidence.”

Mitch McConnell (1942) US Senator from Kentucky, Senate Majority Leader

2021, Remarks on Electoral College votes (2021)

Strong, Support

“I try to think about ways to draw the public to the story of the planet, and seashells are something we’ve always wanted to listen to. It’s sort of irresistible to pick a shell up to the ear and listen to what it’s trying to tell us — and they are telling us a profound story about what we’re doing to the ocean. The tiniest shells are beginning to disintegrate in the acidifying sea. It really is a metaphor for something much bigger.”

Cynthia Barnett (1966) American journalist

Source: https://www.jou.ufl.edu/2019/01/30/cynthia-barnett-we-can-change-and-its-up-to-us-to-do-so/

Way, Sea, Drawing, Thinking

“I will work in the U.S. Senate to support a robust public health response so that we can defeat this virus, putting Georgia’s own Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the lead, trusting medical expertise, doctors, and scientists to bring the tools to bear, the technology to bear, the ingenuity to bear, and the resources to bear necessary to stop the spread of this virus to defeat it and to get our daily lives back — and to rush direct economic relief to people who need help right now.”

Jon Ossoff (1987) American politician

Quoted in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Jolt: Raphael Warnock exults, Jon Ossoff claims victory, and Republicans wonder what happened, (6 January 2021)

Support, People, Help, Health

“People are sick of fake politicians who have no core and say one thing in private and another in public, or are just obviously doing anything right before an election. My sense is that voters of all ideological persuasions prefer candidates who are just real about what they believe and what they want to do, even if it’s not necessarily the precise policy platform that you agree with. You want someone who’s wearing their values on their sleeve and not B.S.’ing*.”

Jon Ossoff (1987) American politician

Ossoff used more colorful language, but this is a family newspaper.
Quoted in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Jolt: Jon Ossoff says voters want ‘someone who’s not B.S.’ing’ (5 January 2020)

Sense, People

“The future [...] looks bright, if only we learn to accept the spontaneous character of the underlying public discourse without venturing to “show it the way” and without succumbing to still another pretense of knowledge.”

Karen Horn (1966) Karen Horn

"A Market Like Any Other: Against the Double Standard in Judging the Media", The Independent Review (Summer 2007)

Knowledge, Future, Way, Learning

“Public speaking is only bad if your clothes don’t fit correctly.”

Isaac Mashman (2000) businessman, speaker

Clothes, Bad luck

“This world taught woman nothing skillful and then said her work was valueless. It permitted her no opinions and said she did not know how to think. It forbade her to speak in public, and said the sex had no orators. It denied her the schools, and said the sex had no genius. It robbed her of every vestige of responsibility & then called her weak.”

Carrie Chapman Catt (1859–1947) American social reformer, suffragist (1859-1947)

From a 1902 speech as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association quoted in "The Wings of Dawn" by Louise Scarmato (2013)

World, Sex, Thinking, School

“A few social media ideas for public servants looking to build an audience: - Endorse Single-Payer Medicare for All, - Hold Wall Street Accountable, - Make Min Wage = Living Wage, - Cancel Puerto Rican Debt, - End For-Profit Prisons & ICE Detention, - Fight for a #GreenNewDeal”

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (1989) American politician

Twitter post, https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1080300714126200832 (1 January 2019) 2019, January 2019

Fight, Idea, Making love

“Whether Protection is a universal poison, or whether it may be conceived to operate as food in cases where it is granted for a few years in order to shelter the first investments in a new industry, I do not now inquire. We at least have never seen or known it in that mitigated form. With us it has sheltered nothing but the most selfish instincts of class against the just demands of the public welfare. These it has supplied with strongholds, from whose portals our producers have too generally marched forth in the day of need, armed from head to foot with power and influence largely gotten at the expense of the community, to do battle with a perverted prowess, against nature, liberty, and justice.”

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

'Free Trade, Railways, and the growth of Commerce', The Nineteenth Century, No. XXXVI (February 1880), quoted in The Nineteenth Century, Vol. VII (January–June 1880), p. 377
1880s

Universe, Selfishness, Justice, Food

“For my own part I am deeply convinced that all excess in the public expenditure beyond the legitimate wants of the country is not only a pecuniary waste—for that is a comparatively trifling matter—but a great political and a great moral evil. It is a characteristic of the mischief which arise from financial prodigality, that they creep onwards with a noiseless and surreptitious step; that they are unseen and unfelt until they have reached a magnitude absolutely overwhelming, and then at length, we see them, as perhaps they now exist in the case of one at least among the great European nations, so fearful and menacing in their aspect that they seem to threaten the very foundations of national existence.”

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

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1861/apr/15/first-night#column_595 in the House of Commons (15 April 1861) 1860s

Parting, Fear, Evil, Country

“I need not tell you that the world situation is very serious. That must be apparent to all intelligent people. I think one difficulty is that the problem is one of such enormous complexity that the very mass of facts presented to the public by press and radio make it exceedingly difficult for the man in the street to reach a clear appraisement of the situation. Furthermore, the people of this country are distant from the troubled areas of the earth and it is hard for them to comprehend the plight and consequent reactions of the long-suffering peoples, and the effect of those reactions on their governments in connection with our efforts to promote peace in the world.”

George Marshall (1880–1959) US military leader, Army Chief of Staff

The Marshall Plan Speech (1947)

Peace, Country, Intelligence, People

“The impulse to increase profits can blind men to risk, especially when those at risk are strangers. Society imposes rules on corporate behavior to protect public safety in the face of baser impulses. These rules require enforcement...”

David Cay Johnston (1948) Investigative journalist and author

Free Lunch (2007)

Behavior, Men

“If I have tried to observe the personal courtesies of public life, it is not because I fail to hate the political enemy’s creed. If I have sought to find some humour in the conflict, it is not because I under-estimate the gravity of the battle. The best years of my life have been given to what I deeply believe is a struggle for freedom.”

Robert Menzies (1894–1978) Australian politician, 12th Prime Minister of Australia

1949 election campaign speech https://electionspeeches.moadoph.gov.au/speeches/1949-robert-menzies, delivered in Melbourne on November 10, 1949 Wilderness Years (1941-1949)

Personality, Life, Hate, Freedom

“The issuance of this guaranteed currency promoted the profession and operations of finance. The older Romans used temples as their banks, as we use banks as our temples; and the state continued to the end to use its strongly built shrines as repositories for public funds, perhaps on the theory that religious scruples would help discourage robbery.”

Will Durant book The Story of Civilization

Source: The Story of Civilization (1935–1975), III - Caesar and Christ (1944), Chapter 4, Part 6

Help

“Public economy is part of public virtue.”

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

Letter to Welby (26 October 1887), quoted in Anthony Howe, Free Trade and Liberal England 1846–1946 (1997), p. 19
1880s

Parting

“I deeply deplore the oblivion into which public economy has fallen; the prevailing disposition to make a luxury of panics, which multitudes seem to enjoy as they would a sensational novel or a highly seasoned cookery; and the leaning of both parties to socialism, which I radically disapprove.”

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

Letter to the Duke of Argyll (30 September 1885), quoted in John Morley, The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Volume III (1903), p. 221
1880s

Making love, Season

“My heart is broken by the terrible loss I have sustained in my old friends and companions and my poor soldiers. Believe me, nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won: the bravery of my troops hitherto saved me from the greater evil; but to win such a battle as this of Waterloo, at the expens of so many gallant friends, could only be termed a heavy misfortune but for the result to the public.”

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769–1852) British soldier and statesman

Letter from the field of Waterloo (June 1815), as quoted in Decisive Battles of the World (1899) by Edward Shepherd Creasy. Quoted too in Memorable Battles in English History: Where Fought, why Fought, and Their Results; with the Military Lives of the Commanders by William Henry Davenport Adams; Editor Griffith and Farran, 1863. p. 400.

Loss, Evil, Heart

“Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom - and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

Freedom, Wisdom

“Unlike utilitarianism, republican theory does not take people's existing preferences, whatever they may be, and try to satisfy them. It seeks instead to cultivate in citizens the qualities of character necessary to the common good of self-government. Insofar as certain dispositions, attachments, and commitments are essential to the realization of self-government, republican politics regards moral character as a public, not merely private, concern. In this sense, it attends to the identity, not just the interests, of its citizens.”

Michael J. Sandel (1953) American political philosopher

Chap. 2. Rights and the Neutral States
Democracy's Discontent (1996)

Sense, People

“The fact that I can tell stories not only by writing them but also by living them through a character and therefore giving the public emotions (possibly positive), which is the ultimate goal of entertainment.”

Isabelle Adriani (1972) Italian actress, journalist, singer, and writer

Italians in the World. Isabelle Adriani, perfect balance between life and fairy tale. https://www.tesoriditaliamagazine.it/italians-in-the-world-isabelle-adriani-perfect-balance-between-life-and-fairy-tale (5 June 2020)

“I have expressed an opinion on public issues whenever they appeared to me so bad and unfortunate that silence would have made me feel guilty of complicity.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Address to the Chicago Decalogue Society (20 February 1954)
1950s

Silence, Appearance, Feeling

“Turning an influencer status into a public speaker is much easier than you can imagine.”

Vladimer Botsvadze

Imagination

“The art and mystery of banks… is established on the principle that 'private debts are a public blessing.”

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

That the evidences of those private debts, called bank notes, become active capital, and aliment the whole commerce, manufactures, and agriculture of the United States. Here are a set of people, for instance, who have bestowed on us the great blessing of running in our debt about two hundred millions of dollars, without our knowing who they are, where they are, or what property they have to pay this debt when called on; nay, who have made us so sensible of the blessings of letting them run in our debt, that we have exempted them by law from the repayment of these debts beyond a give proportion (generally estimated at one-third). And to fill up the measure of blessing, instead of paying, they receive an interest on what they owe from those to whom they owe; for all the notes, or evidences of what they owe, which we see in circulation, have been lent to somebody on an interest which is levied again on us through the medium of commerce. And they are so ready still to deal out their liberalities to us, that they are now willing to let themselves run in our debt ninety millions more, on our paying them the same premium of six or eight per cent interest, and on the same legal exemption from the repayment of more than thirty millions of the debt, when it shall be called for.
ME 13:420
1810s, Letters to John Wayles Eppes (1813)

Art

“This egotism of non-degraded men, which finds a heavenly delight in the calmness of a pure conscience and in the ravishing spectacle of the public good, you feel it in this moment which burns in your souls; I feel it in mine.”

Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) French revolutionary lawyer and politician

Last Speech to the National Convention (26 July 1794)

Soul, Feeling, Men

“No matter how good a system may be, it is of no use if the people do not want it. I believe that the intrinsic function of politics is to carry out the public will, if only on a probational basis, and to make sure it works well.”

Chun Doo-hwan (1931–2021) Korean politician and army general

1987

People

“This is the public health crisis of the century, and doctors should not have barriers.”

Peter A. McCullough (1962) American cardiologist and medical professor

[The Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/07/10/peter-navarro-hydroxychloroquine-coronavirus/, Touting criticized study, White House presses FDA to authorize hydroxychloroquine — again, McGinley, Laurie; Dawsey, Josh, July 10, 2020]

Health

“In general, we need to think about safety and healing as one system, because when we think about law enforcement on its own, and public health on its own, we’re not making the right investments relative to what actually delivers safety and health for our community members.”

Michelle Wu (1985) City Councilor in Boston, Massachusetts

23 September 2020 in "English transcription of Q&A with Mayoral Candidate Michelle Wu" https://thescopeboston.org/4785/uncategorized/english-transcription-of-qa-with-mayoral-candidate-michelle-wu/ in The Boston Scope 2020

Communication, Health, Law, Thinking

“As women, we need to continue to rise in our capacity as leaders in civil society, private sector, public sector and other spheres-to look at how we can help each other thrive in environments where we grow, where we are supported and protected.”

Neo Masisi (1962) first lady of Botswana

Source: Botswana: First Lady Neo Jane Masisi Speech Delivered At the Virtual Launch of the W Summit Diamond Impact Week 2020 https://allafrica.com/stories/202012040594.html (4 December 2020)

Support, Help, Women

“Education and health care are not only commercial services, but also public and universal ones. So on top of commerce, what can we do to play our role? What can we do in terms of pension and health in an ageing society?”

Ma Huateng (1971) Chinese internet entrepreneur

"Tencent founder Pony Ma emphasises company’s investment in social value amid increasing antitrust and gaming scrutiny" in South China Morning Post (23 April 2021) https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3130836/pony-ma-emphasises-tencents-investment-social-value-amid-increasing

Health, Universe, Age, Education

“No purpose is served by making private suffering into a public event.”

Charles Sheffield book Summertide

Source: The Heritage Universe, Summertide (1990), Chapter 23 (p. 254)

Suffering

“I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the Church has done so often in human history."”

Francis George (1937–2015) Catholic cardinal

Replying to a question about the secularization of Western culture in a meeting with a group of priests on circa May 2010. Source: The Myth and the Reality of 'I'll Die in My Bed', Tim Drake, National Catholic Register, October 24, 2012, November 21, 2014 http://www.ncregister.com/blog/tim-drake/the-myth-and-the-reality-of-ill-die-in-my-bed,

History, Help

“To be in love is to be like a public man. Because the public man has no privacy. So are you whenever you fall in love!”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Love

“God created everything, but humans are still ashamed to talk about themselves in the public domain.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

God

“The measure of your quality as a public person, as a citizen, is the gap between what you do and what you say.”

Ramsey Clark (1927) United States Marine

Personality

“A public that tries to do without criticism, and asserts that it knows what it wants or likes, brutalizes the arts and loses its cultural memory. Art for art's sake is a retreat from criticism which ends in an impoverishment of civilized life itself.”

Northrop Frye book Anatomy of Criticism

Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (1957), Polemical Introduction

Memory, Art, Life

“The invention of mobile technologies has demolished distance and boundaries (private or public), and it will soon even demolish the very concept of what it means to be here or there.”

Yiannis Laouris (1958) Cypriot neuroscientist

mLearn International Conference (2005)

“Revealing the truth to the public requires layers of checking and multiple source verification. Good journalism can safeguard interests and foster changes of rules.”

Hu Shuli (1953) Chinese journalist

As quoted in "HU SHULI: The Hard-Earned Right to Report" in Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation (14 November 2016) https://www.rmaward.asia/rmtli/hu-shuli-the-hard-earned-right-to-report/

Truth, Change

“No. I have run away from a lot of publicity. I have tried my best to come back to my desk again. I needed a peaceful corner of my own for my next work. But it took time. Now I am adjusting myself to these new circumstances. I will try to write my next book as soon as possible.”

Han Kang (1970) South Korean writer

On the issue of her publicity in "Korea's Kafka? Man Booker winner Han Kang on why she turns a woman into a plant" in Deutsche Welle (September 12, 2016) https://www.dw.com/en/koreas-kafka-man-booker-winner-han-kang-on-why-she-turns-a-woman-into-a-plant/a-19543017

Books, Peace, Time

“I believe in upholding the right to private property but in controlling it for the public good.”

Charles Coughlin (1891–1979) Catholic priest, radio commentator

Broadcast speech (Nov. 11, 1934)

“At that one very public moment, of a very public declaration of one’s loyalty to one’s fellow citizens and country, one should do so openly, proudly and publicly, without one’s face hidden.”

Jason Kenney (1968) Canadian politician and 18th Premier of Alberta

On banning wearing of the niqab during Canadian citizenship ceremonies https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/16/canada-government-islamic-veil-niqab-ban-citizenship (16 September 2015) 2010s

Country, Loyalty

“We are the ones who have been operating against our public opinion, against our bureaucracy, at the very edge of legality.”

Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) United States Secretary of State

Kissinger to Nixon, quoted in Bass, G. J. (2014). The Blood telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a forgotten genocide.
Source: FRUS: Documents on South Asia, 1969–1972, vol. E-7 (online at http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76ve07), White House tapes, Oval Office 637-3, 12 December 1971, 8:45–9:42 a.m. Hereafter cited as FRUS, vol. E-7. quoted in Bass, G. J. (2014). The Blood telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a forgotten genocide.

“Private prisons are direct sources of profit for the companies that run them, but public prisons have become so thoroughly saturated with the profit-producing products and services of private corporations that the distinction is not as meaningful as one might suspect.”

Angela Davis Are Prisons Obsolete?

Source: Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003), Chapter Five

“Prolonged involvement with Parliament has in the end convinced me that the customary concentration on it as the centre of public affairs, however traditional it may be, is entirely misleading. This is a message, it seems to me, that needs to be absorbed into the general history of England.”

Geoffrey Elton (1921–1994) historian

Geoffrey Rudolph Elton, The Parliament of England, 1559-1581 (1986)

History

“Never were there more gross absurdities, nor half so many in so short a time, committed in any public meeting; and for a National Assembly never did the Church of Christ see the like.”

William Laud (1573–1645) Archbishop of Canterbury

Source: Letter to the Marquis of Hamilton (3 December 1638), quoted in The Works of the Most Reverend Father in God, William Laud, sometime Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. Volume VI—Part II. Letters—Notes on Bellarmine (1857), p. 547

Time, Christ

“Rather will it be a public of inherently free individuals w'ho can keep an individual purpose, learnt in the fields of intense suffering and experience. Such a public are likely to accept and wield responsibility in respect of their own government and their own religion and education.”

Vera Stanley Alder (1898–1984) British artist

Source: Humanity Comes of Age, A study of Individual and World Fulfillment (1950), Chapter XXXV The Opportunity Today

Suffering, Education, Religion

“We need to respect the independent choices of model of technology management and of public policies made by countries, and their right to participating in the global technological governance system as equals.”

Wang Qishan (1948) Chinese politician

Source: "China’s Vice President Decries Technological Hegemony" in The Wall Street Journal https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-vice-president-urges-governments-to-address-their-domestic-problems-11548258999 (23 January 2019)

Country

“Countries around the world are aiming to achieve a goal of zero carbon emissions by 2050, and public transportation is a key to achieving that goal. As such, we need to set a long-term goal for railway infrastructure as well.”

Wang Kwo-tsai politician

Wang Kwo-tsai (2021) cited in " East coast express train speeds to rise https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2021/11/30/2003768771" on Taipei Times, 30 November 2021

World, Country

“My bill would allow people to become an apprentice as a painter, as a glazier, as an electrician, to work for a small business, for a union doing private work, and really develop the skills to have meaningful work in either the public sector or the private sector.”

Ro Khanna (1976) U.S. Representative from California

Source: Quoted in California congressman has a “jobs for all” plan to unite both wings of the Democratic Party, By A.P. Joyce, Mic https://mic.com/articles/189491/california-congressman-has-a-jobs-for-all-plan-to-unite-both-wings-of-the-democratic-party# (28 May 2018)

People, Business

“The long game for Christians in the public square is a big loss if more people don't get out there and proclaim the Gospel message.”

Brian T. Carroll (1949) American educator and politician

Source: He won’t win. So why is Brian Carroll running for president? https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/43755/he-wont-win-so-why-is-brian-carroll-running-for-president (4 March 2020)

Loss, Game, People

“Citizens who understand the power they have to elect and hold those in public office accountable can truly move mountains!”

Yemi Adamolekun Executive Director of Enough is Enough

Source: https://www.vanguardngr.com/2021/10/nigeria-61-eie-11-light-hope-power-and-voice-opinion/ Speaking about Nigeria (October 18 2021 )

Mountain, Understanding

“I will take the various public transportation to my workplace when the situation allows. If you see me, just say hi.”

Loke Siew Fook (1976) Malaysian politician

Source: Loke Siew Fook (2018) cited in " Anthony Loke pledges to take public transport to work whenever possible https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2018/10/06/anthony-loke-vows-to-take-public-transport-to-work/" on The Star Online, 6 October 2018

“The police can live with looking corrupt, bullying, or tyrannical, but looking stupid is intolerable. It has a tendency to undermine public faith in the forces of Law and is deleterious to public order.”

Ben Aaronovitch book Moon Over Soho

Source: Moon Over Soho (2011), Chapter 4, “One-Tenth of My Ashes” (p. 64)

Stupidity, Faith, Law

“We are now (December 2021) working hard to draft a new law that will provide a fair and sustainable solution to the payroll system in the public sector.”

Albin Kurti (1975) Prime Minister of Kosovo

Source: Albin Kurti (2021) cited in " Kosovo approves 2022 budget amid parliamentary disquiet https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/short_news/kosovo-approves-2022-budget-amid-parliamentary-disquiet/" on EURACTIV, 20 December 2021.

Law

“We always have to be serious about public health in a global sense and surveillance for "the next one", because we don't know where it will emerge.”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

Source: As quoted in "Coronavirus: Bill Gates describes what we did wrong, and how to do better" by Lisa M. Krieger, The Mercury News (21 October 2020)

Health, Sense

“We should actively campaign for a public understanding of the benefits of the [UK] union, economic and strategic, for the people and its component nations,”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

Source: Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt pledge to safeguard union https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-48817848 BBC News (30 June 2019)

Understanding, People

“The permanent secretary is a fundamental tool in the country's public administration system, as he bears the mission to coordinate and manage, at technical and operational levels, the financial and administrative processes, human resources and assets of the ministry.”

Carlos Agostinho do Rosário (1954) Prime Minister of Mozambique (2015-present)

Source: Carlos Agostinho do Rosário (2021) cited in: " Mozambique: PM Swears Into Office New Permanent Secretaries https://allafrica.com/stories/202105050741.html" in All Africa, 5 May 2021.

Country

“Few desire to know the truth of what is happening in our state’s abortion clinics. All of the outrage, all of the noise is directed at one thing: silencing the uncomfortable truth. It’s either willful ignorance or a decision to partner with the abortion industry. When I started in public office, I was intellectually pro-life, but now I have come to see that the life issue is truly the issue of our time. The depth of evil that exists to protect this lie prevents the states from protecting children. How we determine the answer to this issue is what will determine where our nation will end up. Unless the truth prevails, abortion will destroy us as a nation.”

Phill Kline (1959) American politician

Source: Ask the Attorney: An Interview with Former Kansas Attorney General and Johnson County District Attorney Phill Kline http://lifelegalgiving.com/ask-the-attorney-an-interview-with-former-kansas-attorney-general-and-johnson-county-district-attorney-phill-kline/ (1 August 2009)

Decision, Life, Silence, Children

“What a pity that he who steals a penny loaf should be hung, whilst he who steals thousands of the public money should be acquitted!”

John Russell, 1st Earl Russell (1792–1878) leading Whig and Liberal politician who served as Prime Minister on two occasions

Source: 1806 journal entry on the acquittal of Lord Melville for misappropriation of public funds, as quoted in Stuart J. Reid, Lord John Russell (1895), p.9

Money

“Above all, maintain the line of demarcation between parties; for it is only by maintaining the independence of party that you can maintain the integrity of public men, and the power and influence of Parliament itself.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Speech in the House of Commons (22 January 1846), quoted in Selected Speeches of the Late Right Honourable the Earl of Beaconsfield, Volume I, ed. T. E. Kebbel (1882), p. 110

Men

“Public opinion is no more than this,
What people think that other people think.”

Alfred Austin (1835–1913) British writer and poet

Prince Lucifer (1887), Lucifer in Act VI, sc. ii; p. 189.

Thinking, People

“[M]andatory public education in this country … was useful in creating not only a harmless electorate and a servile labor force but also a virtual herd of mindless consumers. In time a great number of industrial titans came to recognize the enormous profits to be had by cultivating and tending such a herd via public education.”

John Taylor Gatto (1935–2018) American teacher, book author

Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling (2008)
Source: Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling, New Society Publishers (2013) pp. xix-xx

Education, Time, Country

“I’ve taught public school for 26 years but I just can’t do it anymore. For years I asked the local school board and superintendent to let me teach a curriculum that doesn’t hurt kids, but they had other fish to fry. So I’m going to quit, I think. I’ve come slowly to understand what it is I really teach: A curriculum of confusion, class position, arbitrary justice, vulgarity, rudeness, disrespect for privacy, indifference to quality, and utter dependency. I teach how to fit into a world I don’t want to live in.”

John Taylor Gatto (1935–2018) American teacher, book author

Source: "I Quit, I Think" (1991)

Hurt, Dependency, Understanding, Indifference

“[T]he woman's right to decide for herself... is now subject to regulation, and possibly even prohibition, by our elected representatives. ...Even as the public agenda is stretched to address... questions as the right to die, no issue threatens to divide us politically in... as powerful a way as the abortion issue...”

Laurence Tribe (1941) American lawyer and law school professor

Source: Abortion: The Clash of Absolutes (1990), Approaching Abortion Anew

Way, Question

“A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It's where the rich use public transportation.”

Enrique Peñalosa (1954) Colombian politician

Country, Cars

“We can do all these services for the public because of our faith. If I don't believe in God, why will I take interest in the welfare of others? So strong is my faith that my hands serve the people.”

Peter Machado (1954) Catholic archbishop

Source: Survey of Churches, anti conversion laws only empower radical mobs: Archbishop Peter Machado https://www.sabrangindia.in/article/survey-churches-anti-conversion-laws-only-empower-radical-mobs-archbishop-peter-machado (22 October 2021)

God, Strong, People, Faith

“There are essentially two types of society: mixed economies with public checks and balances, and oligarchies that dismantle and privatize the state, taking over its monetary and credit system, the land and basic infrastructure to enrich themselves but choking the economy, not helping it grow.”

Michael Hudson (economist) (1939) American economist

Source: The Destiny of Civilization https://michael-hudson.com/2022/05/the-destiny-of-civilization/, May 15, 2022

Help

“Don't forget: our media culture failed to serve the public interest by missing (with a few honourable exceptions) the two biggest stories of our time: the run-up to the Iraq war and the financial meltdown. We've had far too many autopsies and not enough biopsies.”

Arianna Huffington (1950) Greek-American author and syndicated columnist

"The paywall is history" The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/may/11/newspapers-web-media-pay-wall 11 May, 2009

War, Time, Forgetting

“We like to have a point of view in our stories, not an obvious moral, but a worthwhile theme. … All we are trying to do is give the public good entertainment. That is all they want.”

Walt Disney (1901–1966) American film producer and businessman

As quoted in The Gospel According to Disney : Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust (2004) by Mark I. Pinsky, p. 2
Year unknown, published in 2004

“The picture of the world that's presented to the public has only the remotest relation to reality. The truth of the matter is buried under edifice after edifice of lies upon lies.”

Noam Chomsky Media Control

Quotes 1990s, 1990–1994, Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda, (1991)

Truth, Reality, World

“I am against the idea when we, so to say, throw someone behing the bars, which is the place where they would hide and flee from responsibility. We will surely find them, but they first have to return public money.”

Viktor Yanukovych (1950) Ukrainian politician who was the President of Ukraine

Source: [Янукович про корупціонерів: ховатись не будуть, - одна розмова, будуть – інша, https://www.unian.ua/politics/482166-yanukovich-pro-koruptsioneriv-hovatis-ne-budut-odna-rozmova-budut-insha.html, 2022-06-12, www.unian.ua, uk, 2011-04-11]

Money, Idea

“Media freedom plays an indispensable role in informing the public, holding governments accountable, and telling stories that otherwise would not be told. The U.S. will continue to stand up for the brave and necessary work of journalists around the world.”

Antony Blinken (1962) American government official and 71th U.S. Secretary of State

Quoted in British Court Trusts US to Protect Assange Even Though CIA Plotted to Kill Him https://truthout.org/articles/british-court-trusts-us-to-protect-assange-even-though-cia-plotted-to-kill-him/, Marjorie Cohn, Truthout (15 December 2021)

Freedom, World

“The decline of the churches was a sweeping social revolution, because they had done more than any other institution, public or private, to civilise Australians.”

Geoffrey Blainey (1930) Australian historian

A Shorter History of Australia (1994)

“Known of the respectability on the part of everyone. I've always been called the villain of reality because unfortunately I'm one of the few real ones. When I think of something, I expose it, regardless of whether it may later please the public.”

Soleil Sorge (1994) American naturalized Italian model, television presenter, television personality and commentator

Original: (it) Noto del perbenismo da parte di tutti quanti. Io sono sempre stata definita la cattiva del reality perché purtroppo sono una delle poche vere. Quando penso una cosa la espongo, a prescindere che possa poi piacere al pubblico. Source: Frasi di Soleil Sorge https://aforismi.meglio.it/aforismi-di.htm?n=Soleil+Sorge, aforismi.meglio.it.

Reality, Thinking, Parting

“I think there will always be a double standard between males and females, so I think that an actress is more likely to protect her public persona, so to speak, than an actor would be.”

Mila Kunis (1983) American actress

"Mila Kunis Says There Is A Double Standard For Males And Females In Hollywood" in Complex https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2012/07/mila-kunis-says-there-is-a-double-standard-for-males-and-females-in-hollywood (18 July 2012)

Thinking