Public Officials Quotes - Page 2

• A reckoning is coming on the state of the internet journalism, because right now, the way it's set up, there is so much room for libel to squeak through that you're going to see...they're going to rewrite the rule book on journalism very soon. They have to, because the bloggers are getting away with so much rumor-mongering about public officials and even private figures because they don't have editors and they don't have fact checkers and they don't have lawyers. There is going to be a price to pay somewhere down the line.

  Rod Lurie

  Book, Editors, Rumor

  Interview with Will Harris, www.bullz-eye.com. March 2, 2009.

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• Public officials are permitted to finance or subsidize their own activities through taxes. That is, they are permitted to engage in and live off, what in private dealings between private law subjects is prohibited and considered 'theft' and 'stolen loot.'

  Hans-Hermann Hoppe

  Law, Finance, Stolen

  "Dr. Hans-Hermann Hoppe on the Impracticality of One-World Government and the Failure of Western-style Democracy". Interview with Anthony Wile, www.thedailybell.com. March 27, 2011.

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• I hope for an America where no president, no public official, no individual will ever be deemed a greater or lesser American because of religious doubt - or religious belief.

  Edward Kennedy

  Religious, America, Doubt

  "Sanders and Kennedy at Liberty, 32 Years Apart" by Russell Berman, www.theatlantic.com. September 15, 2015.

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• If an American, because his skin is dark, cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public, if he cannot send his children to the best public school available, if he cannot vote for the public officials who represent him, if, in short, he cannot enjoy the full and free life which all of us want, then who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place? Who among us would then be content with the counsels of patience and delay?

  John F. Kennedy

  Children, School, Dark

  Civil Rights Address, delivered 11 June 1963

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• I believe in an America ... where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches, or any other ecclesiastical source.

  John F. Kennedy

  Believe, America, Church

  Address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, delivered 12 September 1960 at the Rice Hotel in Houston, TX

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• A young poet in America should not be advised at the outset to give up all for the Muse-to seclude himself in the country, to live hand from mouth in Greenwich Village or to escape to the Riviera. I should not advise him even to become a magazine editor or work in a publisher's office. The poet would do better to study a profession, to become a banker or a public official or even to go in for the movies.

  Edmund Wilson

  Country, Giving Up, Hands

  Edmund Wilson (1952). “The shores of light: a literary chronicle of the twenties and thirties”

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• I, George Bush, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim the decade beginning January 1, 1990, as the Decade of the Brain.

  George H. W. Bush

  America, People, Brain

  "The Return of the Decade of the Brain" by Luke Dittrich, www.esquire.com. September 17, 2013.

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• Get out of debt. In a world of stagnant incomes and rising core expenses like mortgage and health care costs, that's a lot easier said than done. The middle class is under enormous pressure. But families can stop the bleeding by reducing their reliance on debt wherever they can. They can also start fighting back by taking a hard look at whom they do business with and rethinking whether they want tricks-and-traps banks to hold their money. They can also demand that public officials take the side of families over the side of banks.

  Elizabeth Warren

  Fighting, Class, Care

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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• Look, Americans will go for leadership that makes sense. Our job, you know, as public officials, is not to put our finger in the air. Our job is to listen, and then lead.

  Barack Obama

  Leadership, Jobs, Air

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• I always felt, and I still feel, that the media doesn't belong in a public official's private life. It's a very difficult balance, because if you are elected to public office, people have a right to know a great deal about you, and the press has an absolute obligation to report all of that. But the reality is that there are times in which the reporting is really happening for almost voyeuristic reasons, in the gossip columns. Maybe half of it is wrong, and half of it is correct, and a lot of it is exaggerated. You've just got to get used to that if you're in public life.

  Rudy Giuliani

  Reality, Media, People

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• Whether elected or appointed, public officials serve those who put and keep them in office. We cannot depend upon them to fight our battles.

  Charles Hamilton Houston

  Fighting, Office, Battle

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• I was perfectly certain that I had nothing to offer of an individual nature and that my only chance of doing my duty as the wife of a public official was to do exactly as the majority of women were doing.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Wife, Majority, Politics

  Eleanor Roosevelt (1961). “Autobiography”

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• I condemn all statements - made in sincerity or jest - that threaten or suggest the use of violence against the president of the United States or any other public official. Such rhetoric cannot and will not be tolerated.

  Paul Broun

  President, United States, Use

  "Did Rep. Paul Broun Flub 'Who is going to shoot Obama?' query?". Statement, www.csmonitor.com. February 25, 2011.

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• The public does not like you to mislead or represent yourself to be something you're not. And the other thing that the public really does like is the self-examination to say, you know, I'm not perfect. I'm just like you. They don't ask their public officials to be perfect. They just ask them to be smart, truthful, honest, and show a modicum of good sense.

  Ann Richards

  Smart, Self, Perfect

  "Ann Richards Discusses Texas, Politics and Humor". "Larry King Live", transcripts.cnn.com. January 23, 2001.

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• Our international banking system allows banks to accept funds gained from tax evasion and other crimes and thereby facilitates and encourages embezzlement by public officials, especially in developing countries, as well as tax evasion and tax avoidance by multinational corporations.

  Thomas Pogge

  Country, Banking, Developing Countries

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• The Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails.

  Barack Obama

  Errors, Government, Doubt

  "'Most Transparent Administration Ever' Is Still Not" by Erika Eichelberger, www.motherjones.com. February 7, 2013.

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• Rumors are nearly as old as human history, but with the rise of the Internet, they have become ubiquitous. In fact we are now awash in them. False rumors are especially troublesome; they impose real damage on individuals and institutions, and they often resist correction. They can threaten careers, policies, public officials, and sometimes even democracy itself.

  Cass Sunstein

  Real, Careers, Democracy

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• No one made a decision to militarize the police in America. The change has come slowly, the result of a generation of politicians and public officials fanning and exploiting public fears by declaring war on abstractions like crime, drug use, and terrorism. The resulting policies have made those war metaphors increasingly real.

  Radley Balko

  Real, War, Drug Use

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• I have long thought that his [Rupert Murdoch's] social philosophy was contained in his cartoon show, The Simpsons: all politicians and public officials are crooks, and the masses are a vast lumpen proletariat of deluded and exploitable blowhards.

  Conrad Black

  Philosophy, Long, Cartoon

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• All students, members of the faculty, and public officials in both Mississippi and the Nation will be able, it is hoped, to return to their normal activities with full confidence in the integrity of American law. This is as it should be, for our Nation is founded on the principle that observance of the law is the eternal safeguard of liberty and defiance of the law is the surest road to tyranny.

  John F. Kennedy

  Freedom, Integrity, Law

  Radio and Television Report to the Nation on the Situation at the University of Mississippi, September 30, 1962.

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• The budget should be balanced, the treasury should be refilled, the public debt should be reduced and the arrogance of public officials should be controlled.

  Ross Perot

  Arrogance, Debt, Economy

  United States. Congress. Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress, H. Ross Perot (1993). “Ethics Reform: Testimony of H. Ross Perot : Hearing Before the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress, One Hundred Third Congress, First Session ... March 2, 1993”

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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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• 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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• Our public officials have forgotten that they are ultimately accountable to the people who put them in office, that the information they keep in secrecy belongs to all of us. Julian Assange took a courageous step by rightfully returning what belongs to the public domain. For that reason, I believe we need to stand behind him.

  Yoko Ono

  People, Office, Information

  "Yoko Ono Honors Julian Assange With Special Annual Courage Award" by Jordan Zakarin, www.hollywoodreporter.com. February 04, 2013.

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• The freedom to criticize judges and other public officials is necessary to a vibrant democracy. The problem comes when healthy criticism is replaced with more destructive intimidation and sanctions.

  Sandra Day O'Connor

  Judging, Healthy, Democracy

  Interview with Marianne Schnall, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 29, 2009.

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