Officials Quotes - Page 10

• The debt-ceiling vote isn't about what will be done in the future; it is about the integrity of America's commitment to support the bonds we issue. Elected officials have an obligation to maintain that integrity, regardless of whether they voted for the programs that required the borrowing in the first place.

  John Sununu

  Integrity, Commitment, America

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• America has two national budgets, one official, one unofficial.

  Matt Taibbi

  Two, America, Budgets

  "The Real Housewives of Wall Street" by Matt Taibbi, www.rollingstone.com. April 12, 2011.

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• People will never know how hard it is to get information, especially if it's locked up behind official doors where, if politicians had their way, they'd stamp 'top secret' on the color of the walls.

  Helen Thomas

  Wall, Color, Doors

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• The chief internal enemies of any state are not spies nor saboteurs nor the paid agents of foreign governments. They are, on the contrary, those myriads of public officials who betray the trust imposed upon them by the people.

  Dalton Trumbo

  Betrayal, People, Enemy

  "The Remarkable Andrew: The Chronicle of a Literal Man".

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• Never try to be witty with U.S. airport officials. It's always lost on them and you'll find yourself being put back on the plane.

  Johnny Vegas

  Witty, Airports, Finding Yourself

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• I am Puerto Rican. I think Latinas are sexy, and being one, it has influenced a lot of my style, but being an official Los Angelite, this town has influenced most of my daily style, which is relaxed & easy.

  Nadine Velazquez

  Sexy, Thinking, Style

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• WikiLeaks is exposing our government officials for the frauds that they are. They also show us how governments work together to lie to their citizens when they are waging war.

  Jesse Ventura

  War, Lying, Government

  Jesse Ventura, Dick Russell (2012). “63 Documents the Government Doesn't Want You to Read”, p.7, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• Voters cannot hold officials responsible if they do not know what government is doing, or which parts of government are doing what.

  George Will

  Government, Voters, Responsible

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• Way before Watergate, senior administration officials hid behind anonymity.

  Bob Woodward

  Senior, Literature, Way

  "Watergate: 25 Years Later". The Washington Post Interview, www.washingtonpost.com. June 17, 1997.

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• Around my house, I won't even speak to my family unless they first address me by my official Berzerker name, Godred Crovan, Victor of Sky-Hill and Ruler of Man and the Isles. And now that I think of it, that's probably why nobody speaks to me unless it's time to feed the dogs or take out the garbage.

  Zakk Wylde

  Dog, Men, Thinking

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• Communicating online goes back to the Defense Department's Arpanet which started in 1969. There was something called Usenet that started in 1980, and this gave people an opportunity to talk about things that people on these more official networks didn't talk about.

  Howard Rheingold

  Opportunity, People, Defense

  "WELL, Birthplace Of Online Movement Is Up For Sale". Interview with David Greene, www.npr.org. September 3, 2012.

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• Now listen to the first three aims of the corporatist movement in Germany, Italy and France during the 1920s. These were developed by the people who went on to become part of the Fascist experience: (1) shift power directly to economic and social interest groups; (2) push entrepreneurial initiative in areas normally reserved for public bodies; (3) obliterate the boundaries between public and private interest -- that is, challenge the idea of the public interest. This sounds like the official program of most contemporary Western governments.

  John Ralston Saul

  Ideas, Government, People

  John Ralston Saul (2012). “The Unconscious Civilization”, p.89, Simon and Schuster

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• Today as always, men fall into two groups: slaves and free men. Whoever does not have two-thirds of his day for himself, is a slave, whatever he may be: a statesman, a businessman, an official, or a scholar.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Fall, Men, Two

  Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1984). “Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits”, p.171, U of Nebraska Press

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• I’m worried that students will take their obedient place in society and look to become successful cogs in the wheel - let the wheel spin them around as it wants without taking a look at what they’re doing. I’m concerned that students not become passive acceptors of the official doctrine that’s handed down to them from the White House, the media, textbooks, teachers and preachers.

  Howard Zinn

  Teacher, Successful, Media

  "A People's History of the United States". Book by Howard Zinn, www.huffingtonpost.com. 1980.

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• A passport, as I'm sure you know, is a document that one shows to government officials whenever one reaches a border between two countries, so that the official can learn who you are, where you were born, and how you look when photographed unflatteringly.

  Daniel Handler

  Country, Travel, Government

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• Most contemporary novels are not really "written." They obtain what reality they have largely from an accurate rendering of the noises that human beings currently make in their daily simple needs of communication; and what part of a novel is not composed of these noises consists of a prose which is no more alive than that of a competent newspaper writer or government official. A prose that is altogether alive demands something of the reader that the ordinary novel-reader is not prepared to give.

  T. S. Eliot

  Communication, Simple, Reality

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• It is quite common to hear high officials in Washington and elsewhere speak of changing the map of the Middle East, as if ancient societies and myriad peoples can be shaken up like so many peanuts in a jar.

  Edward Said

  Middle East, Maps, Jars

  Edward W. Said (2014). “Orientalism”, p.18, Vintage

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• A few weeks later, I’m in a fluorescent-lit classroom in Chelsea awaiting the start of the official Mensa test. I’m sitting next to a guy who’s doing a series of elaborate neck stretches, like we’re about to engage in a vigorous rugby match. He’s neatly laid out four types of gum on his Formica desk: Juicy Fruit, Wrigley Spearmint, Big Red, and Eclipse. I hate this guy. I hope to God he’s not a genius.

  A. J. Jacobs

  Hate, Guy, Genius

  A. J. Jacobs (2004). “The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World”, p.58, Simon and Schuster

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• If each side had been frankly contending for its own real wish, they would all have kept within the bounds of reason and courtesy; but just because the contention is reversed and each side is fighting the other side’s battle, all the bitterness which really flows from thwarted self-righteousness and obstinacy and from the accumulated grudges of the last ten years is concealed from them by the nominal or official "Unselfishness" of what they are doing or, at least, held to be excused by it.

  C. S. Lewis

  Real, Fighting, Self

  C. S. LEWIS (1961). “The Screwtape Letters & Screwtape Proposes a Toast”

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• Part of the puzzle, surely, lies in the disconnect between official rhetoric and lived realities. Americans are constantly extolling “traditions”; litanies to family values are at the center of every politician’s discourse. And yet the culture of America is extremely corrosive of family life, indeed of all traditions except those redefined as “identities” that fit in the larger patterns of distinctiveness, cooperation, and openness to innovation.

  Susan Sontag

  Lying, Reality, America

  Susan Sontag, Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (2003). “Susan Sontag: Ansprachen aus Anlass der Verleihung”

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• I consider the official Catholic attitude on divorce, birth control, and censorship exceedingly dangerous to mankind.

  Bertrand Russell

  Attitude, Divorce, Catholic

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Bertrand Russell's Best”, p.34, Routledge

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• And then he'd tried to become an official Atheist and hadn't got the rock-hard self-satisfied strength of belief even for that.

  Neil Gaiman

  Atheist, Rocks, Self

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• Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Country, Truth, Mean

  Theodore Roosevelt (2015). “Theodore Roosevelt on Bravery: Lessons from the Most Courageous Leader of the Twentieth Century”, p.42, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• There is a huge body of evidence to support the notion that me and the police were put on this earth to do extremely different things and never to mingle professionally with each other, except at official functions, when we all wear ties and drink heavily and whoop it up like the natural, good-humored wild boys that we know in our hearts that we are..These occasions are rare, but they happen - despite the forked tongue of fate that has put us forever on different paths.

  Hunter S. Thompson

  Heart, Fate, Boys

  Hunter S. Thompson (2011). “Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the F”, p.289, Simon and Schuster

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• Official morality has always been oppressive and negative: it has said "thou shalt not," and has not troubled to investigate the effect of activities not forbidden by the code.

  Bertrand Russell

  Negative, Morality, Said

  Bertrand Russell (2004). “Sceptical Essays”, p.99, Psychology Press

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