Top 59 Public Duty Quotes
#1. Let no guilty man escape, if it can he avoided ... No personal consideration should stand in the way of performing a public duty.
Ulysses S. Grant
#2. My doctor says that I have a malformed public-duty gland and a natural deficiency in moral fibre and that I am therefore excused from saving universes.
Douglas Adams
#3. A garden is a public service and having one a public duty. It is a man's contribution to the community.
Richardson Wright
#4. Since the adventure some of those who worked with me have buried themselves in the shallow grave of public duty.
T.E. Lawrence
#5. Vice incapacitates a man from all public duty; it withers the powers of his under- standing, and makes his mind paralytic.
Edmund Burke
#6. The government and the church are two different realms of service, and those in political office have to face a subtle but important difference between the implementation of the high ideals of religious faith and public duty.
Jimmy Carter
#7. We may succeed in preserving a modicum of rectitude in the performance of our public duty, but behind this facade lurk violent and sinful emotions, which are always threatening to erupt.
John R.W. Stott
#8. Only a keen sense of public duty restrains me from plugging you where you sit, you ineffable swine.
Sapper
#9. These are days of special perplexity and depression, and the path of public duty is unusually rugged.
Grover Cleveland
#10. I consider it a public duty to answer falsifications with facts. I will not pretend that I find this an unpleasant duty. I am an old campaigner, and I love a good fight.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
#11. One reads for pleasure...it is not a public duty.
Alan Bennett
#12. I believe that our vote is both a public duty and a sacred trust.
Gordon Brown
#13. Let me make this clear: it is our duty to adopt a policy barring the wearing of niqabs in these public buildings.
Maajid Nawaz
#14. The English social anthropologist Geoffrey Gorer, in his 1965 Death, Grief, and Mourning, had described this rejection of public mourning as a result of the increasing pressure of a new "ethical duty to enjoy oneself," a novel "imperative to do nothing which might diminish the enjoyment of others.
Joan Didion
#15. Every American soldier wants as much public support as he can possibly have. That's the soldiers on duty in Iraq, and that's me, as well. We fight better knowing that our people back home support us, back us, and understand what we're doing. It's hugely important.
John Abizaid
#16. It's no accident that capitalism has brought with it progress, not merely in production but also in knowledge. Egoism and competition are, alas, stronger forces than public spirit and sense of duty.
Albert Einstein
#17. I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit.
Grover Cleveland
#18. When an honest writer discovers an imposition it is his simple duty to strip it bare and hurl it down from its place of honor, no matter who suffers by it; any other course would render him unworthy of the public confidence.
Mark Twain
#19. Law enforcement officers are never 'off duty.' They are dedicated public servants who are sworn to protect public safety at any time and place that the peace is threatened. They need all the help that they can get.
Barbara Boxer
#20. 'Fairness' can be an important quality for legislators to consider when they are passing public policies. But it is a subjective standard. And it has no place among judges on a court - whose duty is to dispassionately judge a law's constitutionality.
Gary Bauer
#21. When you become entitled to exercise the right of voting for public officers, let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers just men who will rule in the fear of God. The preservation of a republican government depends on the faithful discharge of this duty.
Noah Webster
#22. Interest yourself in public affairs as a duty of citizenship, but do not surrender your faith to those who discredit and debase politics by scoffing at sentiment and principle, and whose political activity consists in attempts to gain popular support by cunning devices and shrewd manipulation.
Grover Cleveland
#23. All Governments rest mainly on public opinion, and to that of his own subjects every wise Sovereign will look. The opinion of his subjects will force a Sovereign to do his duty, and by that opinion will he be exalted or depressed in the politics of the world.
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon
#24. Public toilets have a duty to be accessible, poetry does not.
Geoffrey Hill
#25. What concerns all, should be considered by all; and individuals may injure a whole society, by not declaring their sentiments. It is therefore not only their right, but their duty, to declare them.
John Dickinson
#26. The people had once created the city. The city now created the people, or, more exactly, the people of Venice now identified themselves more in terms of the city. The private had become public.
Peter Ackroyd
#27. You can cry in public as long as you don not sob. Tears are transparent. If you're walking fast, if the sun's too strong, no one notices. Sobs intrude. They push their way into people's consciousness. They feel duty-bound to ask what has happened.
Jerry Pinto
#28. Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
#29. The care of the public health is the first duty of the statesman.
Benjamin Disraeli
#30. I feel I have a political duty to reach out to the general public. I want to make films that the people want to see. So if the people want to see Johnny Depp or Tom Cruise, then it is really my job to incorporate them into my films.
Bruno Dumont
#31. Teaching the layperson (divulgare) is not distorting (tergiversare) the subject, but educating the public; and it is our duty as scientists to educate without distorting the essence of the scientific knowledge attained by humanity. The future of our society depends upon this premise.
Felix Alba-Juez
#32. Painting is a faith, and it imposes the duty to disregard public opinion.
Vincent Van Gogh
#33. Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, Nor public men, nor cheering crowds, A lonely impulse of delight Drove to this tumult in the clouds.
William Butler Yeats
#34. All free governments, whatever their name, are in reality governments by public opinion ; and it is on the quality of this public opinion that their prosperity depends. It is, therefore, their first duty to purify the element from which they draw the breath of life.
James Russell Lowell
#35. I believe scientists have a duty to share the excitement and pleasure of their work with the general public, and I enjoy the challenge of presenting difficult ideas in an understandable way.
Antony Hewish
#36. Governments in countries across the world have a duty to do everything possible to keep the public safe from terrorist attacks.
Nicola Sturgeon
#37. The last duty of a central banker is to tell the public the truth.
Alan Blinder
#38. The paramount duty of maintaining public order and defending the interests of our own people may require the adoption of measures of restriction, but they should not tolerate the oppression of individuals of a special race.
Grover Cleveland
#39. It is your duty to examine the conduct of public figures and to place them in the spotlight - that is your duty.
Nelson Mandela
#40. A man who knows a thing, who is aware of a given danger, and sees the possibility of a remedy with his own eyes, has the duty and obligation, by God, not to work 'silently,' but to stand up before the whole public against the evil and for its cure.
Adolf Hitler
#41. Lots of people have gone from public housing to do great things in the world and have a tremendous sense of duty to their fellow man because of it.
Jewel
#42. I now add, farther, that the apostle's 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
#43. The American public should simply accept no distractions. In our democracy, it is our duty to hold our elected leaders accountable. We do it at the ballot box.
Wesley Clark
#45. Painting is a faith and that it brings with it the duty to pay no heed to public opinion - and that in it one conquers by perseverance and not by giving in.
Vincent Van Gogh
#46. The great discovery of the nineteenth century, that we are of one blood with the lower animals, has created new ethical obligations which have not yet penetrated the public conscience. The clerical profession has been lamentably remiss in preaching this obvious duty.
William Ralph Inge
#47. It requires heavy-duty interventions: sweeping bans on polluting activities, deep subsidies for green alternatives, pricey penalties for violations, new taxes, new public works programs, reversals of privatizations - the list of ideological outrages goes on and
Naomi Klein
#48. Oh, the public! There's no satisfying them! It's no use working and doing one's best! One's driven to drinking and cursing it all. . . . If you do nothing -- they're angry; if you begin doing your duty, they're angry too. There's nothing for it but drink!
Anton Chekhov
#50. 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
#51. I believe Britishness is defined not on ethnic and exclusive grounds but through shared values; our history of tolerance, openness and internationalism; and our commitment to democracy and liberty, to civic duty and the public space.
David Blunkett
#52. It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonialization, or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands.
Ariel Sharon
#53. Ever since Romanticism, an oppositional mode, artists have the right, and indeed the duty, to attack social convention. But it is ridiculous and in fact self-infantilizing for them to expect to be financially supported by the general public whom they are insulting.
Camille Paglia
#54. Good stewardship of the environment is not just a personal responsibility, it is a public value ... Our duty is to use the land well, and sometimes not to use it at all. This is our responsibility as citizens, but more than that, it is our calling as stewards of the earth.
George W. Bush
#55. Every scientist should, after all, regard it as his duty to tell the public, in a generally intelligible way, about what he is doing
Konrad Lorenz
#56. Donating money to a few of my favorite free-market organizations used to be a pleasant duty, but now I'm literally inundated with demands from hundreds of think tanks and public-policy groups, all vying for my limited funds
Mark Skousen
#57. The Constitution gives us a standard to follow. We cannot define impeachable offenses to a greater degree than the language of the Constitution. But we all agree the issue is the public trust. Our duty is not to punish anyone. And our challenge is to avoid pettiness.
Asa Hutchinson
#58. What we need are not prohibitory marriage laws, but a reformed society, an educated public opinion which will teach individual duty in these matters.
Alfred Russel Wallace
#59. You can not divorce religious belief and public service. I've never detected any conflict between God's will and my political duty. If you violate one, you violate the other.
Jimmy Carter
