Public Good Quotes - Page 2

• I now add, farther, that the apostles argument is so far from proving it to be the duty of people to obey, and submit to, such rulers as act in contradiction to the public good, and so to the design of their office, that it proves the direct contrary.

  Jonathan Mayhew

  People, Office, Design

  Jonathan Mayhew (1969). “Sermons: Seven Sermons: A Discourse, Concerning the Unlimited Submission and Non-resistance to the Higher Powers. The Snare Broken”

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• A people fired ... with love of their country and of liberty, a zeal for the public good, and a noble emulation of glory, will not be disheartened or dispirited by a succession of unfortunate events. But like them, may we learn by defeat the power of becoming invincible.

  Abigail Adams

  Country, People, Liberty

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• Moreover, the sciences are monuments devoted to the public good; each citizen owes to them a tribute proportional to his talents. While the great men, carried to the summit of the edifice, draw and put up the higher floors, the ordinary artists scattered in the lower floors, or hidden in the obscurity of the foundations, must only seek to improve what cleverer hands have created.

  Charles-Augustin de Coulomb

  Science, Men, Artist

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• My public life is before you; and I know you will believe me when I say, that when I sit down in solitude to the labours of my profession, the only questions I ask myself are, What is right? What is just? What is for the public good?

  Joseph Howe

  Believe, Solitude, Life Is

  Joseph Howe (1858). “Speeches and Public Letters”, p.69

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• So there's always been this clash between what is the public good - that which belongs to all of us in common - and what can be exploited for a private interest.

  Neil Abercrombie

  Common, Interest, Clash

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• All geniuses born women are lost to the public good.

  Mary Pipher

  Genius, Lost, Born

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• We need to revise our economic thinking to give full value to our natural resources. This revised economics will stabilize both the theory and the practice of free-market capitalism. It will provide business and public policy with a powerful new tool for economic development, profitability, and the promotion of the public good.

  Paul Hawken

  Powerful, Thinking, Practice

  "Capital Gains" by Paul Hawken, www.motherjones.com. March/April 1997.

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• Since they are our right, let us be vigilant to preserve them uninfringed, and free from encroachments. If animosities arise, and we should be obliged to resort to party, let each of us range himself on the side which unfurls the ensigns of public good. Faction will then vanish, which, if not timely suppressed, may overturn the balance, the palladium of liberty, and crush us under its ruins.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Crush, Party, Voting

  Benjamin Franklin, Jared Sparks (1836). “Works: containing several political and historical tracts not included in any former edition ...”, p.281

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• To remain silent is the most useful service that a mediocre speaker can render to the public good.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Silent, Mediocre, Speakers

  Alexis de Tocqueville, Arthur Goldhammer (2004). “Democracy in America”, p.576, Library of America

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• Suspicion is a virtue as long as its object is the public good, and as long as it stays within proper bounds. Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel.

  Patrick Henry

  Jealous, Jewels, Long

  Speech on the Federal Constitution, Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 05, 1788.

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• A vibrant, rich, growing corpus of public-domain books is a vital public good - similar to parks, the infrastructure of basic services, and other hallmarks of any advanced society.

  Tom Peters

  Book, Growing, Parks

  Source: www.researchgate.net

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• If you believe that health care is a public good to be guaranteed by the state, then a single-payer system is the next best alternative. Unfortunately, it is fiscally unsustainable without rationing.

  Charles Krauthammer

  Believe, Alternatives, Care

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• The acceptance of corporatism causes us to deny and undermine the legitimacy of the individual as citizen in a democracy. The result of such a denial is a growing imbalance which leads to our adoration of self-interest and our denial of the public good.

  John Ralston Saul

  Acceptance, Self, Democracy

  John Ralston Saul (2012). “The Unconscious Civilization”, p.2, Simon and Schuster

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• Under the benignant providence of Almighty God the representatives of the States and of the people are again brought together to deliberate for the public good.

  James K. Polk

  People, Together, Almighty

  James K. Polk (2009). “Messages and Papers of the Presidents: James K. Polk, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, and Franklin Pierce”, p.2479, Wildside Press LLC

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• Legally speaking, the term 'public rights' is as vague and indefinite as are the terms 'public health,' 'public good,' 'public welfare,' and the like. It has no legal meaning, except when used to describe the separate, private, individual rights of a greater or less number of individuals.

  Lysander Spooner

  Rights, Numbers, Welfare

  Lysander Spooner (1971). “The collected works of Lysander Spooner”

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• It is a misfortune, inseparable from human affairs, that public measures are rarely investigated with that spirit of moderation which is essential to a just estimate of their real tendency to advance or obstruct the public good; and that this spirit is more apt to be diminished than prompted, by those occasions which require an unusual exercise of it.

  James Madison

  Real, Exercise, Essentials

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (2003). “The Federalist: With Letters of Brutus”, p.168, Cambridge University Press

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• Industry is far more efficient than the university in making use of scientific developments for the public good.
  Reported in 1981, as a co-founder of Genentech, Inc., a company to offer gene-splicing products.

  Herbert Boyer

  Science, Use, Development

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• The English doctrine that all power is a trust for the public good.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Trust, Doctrine, Public Trust

  "Essay on Horace Walpole" by Thomas B. Macaulay, 1833.

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• Alliances are crucial to success in the political sphere. However, if we are to approach other organizations to propose alliances for the public good, we must be prepared to assert a far more important role for the library. We must clearly define what we do and establish and assert the relationship of libraries to basic democratic freedoms, to the fundamental humanistic principles that are central to our very way of life. . . .

  Arthur Curley

  Organization, Political, Democracy

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• Our civilization is locked in the grip of an ideology - corporatism. An ideology that denies and undermines the legitimacy of individuals as the citizen in a democracy. The particular imbalance of this ideology leads to a worship of self-interest and a denial of the public good. The practical effects on the individual are passivity and conformism in the areas that matter, and non-conformism in the areas that don't

  John Ralston Saul

  Self, Civilization, Democracy

  John Ralston Saul (2012). “The Unconscious Civilization”, p.186, Simon and Schuster

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• An over-scrupulous jealousy of danger to the rights of the people, which is more commonly the fault of the head than of the heart, will be represented as mere pretense and artifice, the stale bait for popularity at the expense of the public good.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Heart, Rights, People

  James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay (2016). “The Federalist Papers: The Making of the US Constitution”, p.19, Arcturus Publishing

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• It is a just observation that the people commonly intend the Public Good. This often applies to their very errors. But their good sense would despise the adulator who should pretend they always reason right about the means of promoting it.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Mean, Errors, People

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Quentin P. Taylor, John Jay (1998). “The Essential Federalist: A New Reading of the Federalist Papers”, p.135, Rowman & Littlefield

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• The best defence [for a democracy, for the public good] is aggressiveness, the aggressiveness of the involved citizen. We need to reassert that slow, time-consuming, inefficient, boring process that requires our involvement; it is called 'being a citizen.' The public good is not something that you can see. It is not static. It is a process. It is the process by which democratic civilizations build themselves.

  John Ralston Saul

  Civilization, Democracy, Needs

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• While I believe our Constitution allows for State and local governments to execute the power of eminent domain for those purposes that specifically serve the public good, condemning property solely to implement economic development plans is not serving the public good.

  Solomon Ortiz

  Believe, Government, Eminent Domain

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• It is an old liberal theme that conservative ideas, being red in tooth and claw, cannot possibly emerge from any notion of the public good.

  Charles Krauthammer

  Ideas, Teeth, Red

  "The Great Peasant Revolt of 2010". Jewish World Review Column, www.jewishworldreview.com. January 29, 2010.

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