Public Office Quotes - Page 2

• No one in this world, so far as I know--and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me--has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has any one ever lost public office thereby. The mistake that is made always runs the other way. Because the plain people are able to speak and understand, and even, in many cases, to read and write, it is assumed that they have ideas in their heads, and an appetite for more. This assumption is folly. They dislike ideas, for ideas make them uncomfortable.

  H. L. Mencken

  Education, Running, Mistake

  Chicago Tribune, 19 Sept. 1926.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Occupants of public offices love power and are prone to abuse it.

  George Washington

  Money, Power, Office

  110 Copy quote

• Jesus was too smart to ever run for public office. That's what Jesus would do.

  Mike Huckabee

  Running, Jesus, Smart

  CNN/YouTube Republican presidential debate in St. Petersburg, Florida, edition.cnn.com. November 28, 2007.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is a mindless philosophy that assumes that one's private beliefs have nothing to do with public office. Does it make sense to entrust those who are immoral in private with the power to determine the nation's moral issues and, indeed, its destiny? One of the most dangerous and terrifying trends in America today is the disregard for character as a central necessity in a leader's credentials. The duplicitous soul of a leader can only make a nation more sophisticated in evil.

  Ravi Zacharias

  Christian, Philosophy, Character

  363 Copy quote

• If America is to survive, we must elect more God-centered men and women to public office; individuals who will seek Divine guidance in the affairs of state.

  Billy Graham

  Christian, Men, Divine Guidance

  4 Copy quote

• If I had my way, any man guilty of golf would be barred from any public office in the United States and the families of the breed would be shipped off to the white slave corrals of Argentina.

  H. L. Mencken

  Golf, Men, White

  7 Copy quote

• A tall, well-built man with a deep chest and broad shoulders can carry a heavy burden with ease and unconcern, and still keep one hand free; a dwarf would be crushed by half that weight. Thus lofty posts make great men greater still, and small men much smaller.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Men, Office, Small Man

  "Of Man". "Characters", Book by Jean De La Bruyère, www.ourcivilisation.com. 1688.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have been a lifelong community activist and frankly did not dream of being in public office.

  Karen Bass

  Dream, Office, Community

  4 Copy quote

• I truly believe that before I retire from public office, I'll be voting for a woman for president.

  Barbara Mikulski

  Believe, Office, Voting

  4 Copy quote

• These international bankers and Rockefeller Standard Oil interests control the majority of newspapers and the columns of these papers to club into submission or drive out of public office officials who refuse to do the bidding of the powerful corrupt cliques which compose the invisible government.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Powerful, Government, Oil

  24 Copy quote

• Although I held public office for a total of sixteen years, I also thought of myself as a citizen-politician, not a career one. Every now and then when I was in government, I would remind my associates that "When we start thinking of government as 'us' instead of 'them,' we've been here too long." By that I mean that elected officeholders need to retain a certain skepticism about the perfectibility of government.

  Ronald Reagan

  Mean, Thinking, Government

  7 Copy quote

• If a large city can, after intense intellectual efforts, choose for its mayor a man who merely will not steal from it, we consider it a triumph of the suffrage.

  Frank Moore Colby

  Men, Cities, Office

  Frank Moore Colby (1904). “Imaginary Obligations”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Does not all the world know that when in autumn the Bismarcks of the world, or they who are bigger than Bismarcks, meet at this or that delicious haunt of salubrity, the affairs of the world are then settled in little conclaves, with grater ease, rapidity, and certainty than in large parliaments or the dull chambers of public offices?

  Anthony Trollope

  Autumn, Office, Doe

  Anthony Trollope (2015). “The Palliser Novels: Complete Parliamentary Chronicles (All Six Novels in One Volume): Can You Forgive Her? + Phineas Finn + The Eustace Diamonds + Phineas Redux + The Prime Minister + The Duke’s Children”, p.2289, e-artnow

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Happy family: The existence and maintenance of [this] is thought to make a politician fit for public office. According to this theory, the public are less concerned by whether or not they are effectively represented than by the need to be assured that the penises and vaginas of public officials are only used in legally sanctioned circumstances.

  John Ralston Saul

  Office, Needs, Maintenance

  John Ralston Saul (2012). “The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense”, p.156, Simon and Schuster

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• We are the raison d'être of the entire system. We are also the employers of those in public office and in the public service. Why should we accept from them a discourse which suggests contempt for us and for the democratic system?

  John Ralston Saul

  Office, Public Service, Accepting

  "The Doubter's Companion". Book by John Ralston Saul, 1994.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• I wish to extend an invitation to solidarity to everyone, and I would like to encourage those in public office to make every effort to give new impetus to employment, this means caring for the dignity of the person, but above all I would say do not lose hope.

  Pope Francis

  Mean, Caring, Giving

  7 Copy quote

• Rudolph Giuliani will be the first Secretary of State whose last public office was mayor, the most thoroughly domestic public office that we have.

  Lawrence O'Donnell

  Office, Rudolph, Lasts

  Source: www.msnbc.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Those in public office who do not love the people are thieves stealing salaries. Those who teach but do not themselves practice what they teach are mere talkers. Those who try to do successful work without considering development of character will find it insubstantial.

  Zicheng Hong

  Character, Successful, Practice

  10 Copy quote

• Most of the women who have offered themselves for public office over the years have done so, I believe, more because of the 'dirt' than in spite of it.

  Agnes Macphail

  Believe, Years, Office

  7 Copy quote

• It is now abundantly clear that the Clintons set up a business to profit from public office. They sold access and specific actions by and really for I guess the making of large amounts of money.

  Donald Trump

  Office, Action, Clinton

  Source: www.cbsnews.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• [Senator]Torricelli [D-NJ] will leave public office with just the clothes on his back, a Rolex watch and other assorted jewelry, a TV set, a couple of racks of Italian suits, some Jets tickets, a grandfather clock and three paper sacks filled with small, unmarked bills.

  Ann Coulter

  Couple, Italian, Clothes

  6 Copy quote

• I have been immeasurably honored to serve the people of Maine for nearly 40 years in public office and for the past 17 years in the United States Senate. It was incredibly difficult to decide that I would not seek a fourth term in the Senate.

  Olympia Snowe

  Past, Years, People

  Olympia Snowe: Why I’m leaving the Senate" by Olympia Snowe, www.washingtonpost.com. March 1, 2012.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• As Members of Congress, we should not be using public office for private gain.

  Sheila Jackson Lee

  Office, Gains, Should

  86 Copy quote

• You have to decide what those issues are for you. What do you think disqualifies a person from holding public office? I believe that the endorsement of the right to kill unborn children disqualifies a person from any position of public office. It's simply the same as saying that the endorsement of racism, fraud, or bribery, would disqualify him - except that child-killing is more serious than those.

  John Piper

  Children, Believe, Thinking

  John Piper (2009). “A Godward Life: Savoring the Supremacy of God in All of Life”, p.280, Multnomah

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Anyone who campaigns for public office becomes disqualified for holding any office at all.

  Thomas More

  Office, Campaigns

  26 Copy quote