Top 100 Public Men Quotes
#2. The greatest superstition now entertained by public men is that hypocrisy is the royal road to success.
Robert Green Ingersoll
#3. The men who administer public affairs must first of all see that everyone holds onto what is his, and that private men are never deprived of their goods by public men.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
#4. When public men indulge themselves in abuse, when they deny others a fair trial, when they resort to innuendo and insinuation, to libel, scandal, and suspicion, then our democratic society is outraged, and democracy is baffled.
J. William Fulbright
#5. I have often said in answer to inquiries as to how I got away with kidding some of our public men, that it was because I liked all of them personally, and that if there was no malice in your heart there could be none in your "Gags", and I have always said I never met a man I dident like.
Will Rogers
#6. Our public men are speaking every day on something, but they ain't saying anything.
Will Rogers
#7. Public men, Mr Birling, have responsibilities as well as privileges.
J.B. Priestley
#8. Shrewdness in public life all over the world is always honored, while honesty in public men is generally attributed to dumbness and is seldom rewarded.
Will Rogers
#9. Any sort of plain speaking is better than the nauseous sham good fellowship our democratic public men get up for shop use.
George Bernard Shaw
#10. When we speak freely, let us speak plainly, for plain speech is wholesome; especially, plain speech about public affairs and public men.
Albert J. Nock
#11. The prevailin' weakness of most public men is to Slop Over! ... G. Washington never slopt over.
Artemas Ward
#12. [Imeachable conduct is] misconduct by public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust.
Alexander Hamilton
#13. In Europe public men do resign. But here it's a lost art. You have to impeach 'em.
Will Rogers
#14. No one asks public men to be strictly moral, but they must seem to be well-behaved.
Storm Jameson
#15. It was a constant source of irritation to him that the public men on his side were, on the whole, not conspicuously better than the public men on the other side.
George Eliot
#16. In government offices which are sensitive to the vehemence and passion of mass sentiment public men have no sure tenure. They are in effect perpetual office seekers, always on trial for their political lives, always required to court their restless constituents.
Walter Lippmann
#17. Two temptations that impair the value of their work inevitably beset public men who write memoirs. One is a tendency to reconstruct the past to suit the present views and feelings of the writer; the other is a natual desire to set his own part in affairs in a pleasing light.
Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey Of Fallodon
#18. What we want, above all things on earth in our public men, is independence. It is one great defect in the character of the public men of America that there is that real want of independence; and, in this respect, a most marked contrast exists between public men in this country and in Great Britain.
John C. Calhoun
#19. The men who have guided the destiny of the United States have found the strength for their tasks by going to their knees. This private unity of public men and their God is an enduring source of reassurance for the people of America.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#20. The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men.
Samuel Adams
#22. 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
#23. I try not to blame the public, because the public - men, especially - have seen not great portrayals of women in supporting roles, because they're not given the lead roles a lot of the time. Especially in comedy, they're relegated to the adversary, which is like "the mean girlfriend."
Paul Feig
#24. I grow in worth, and wit, and sense, Unboding critic-pen, Or that eternal want of pence, Which vexes public men.
Alfred Lord Tennyson
#25. The most powerful men are not public men: a public man is responsible, and a responsible man is a slave. It is private life that governs the world.
Benjamin Disraeli
#26. It has long been recognized by public men of all kinds ... that statistics come under the head of lying, and that no lie is so false or inconclusive as that which is based on statistics.
Hilaire Belloc
#28. Envy of the male role can come as much from an undervaluation of the role of wife and mother as from an overvaluation of the public aspects of achievement that have been reserved for men.
Margaret Mead
#29. I need to know how many men ... " I glanced at the door. "How many men Brant has ... " I tried to find the right word to use in this public setting. " ... been in contact with. If Lee is the only one. What the possibilities are for more.
Alessandra Torre
#30. Wherefore for the public interest and benefit of human society it is requisite that the highest obligations possible should be laid upon the consciences of men.
Isaac Barrow
#31. The situation in Greece just goes from bad to worse. We've now got a situation where there was the big suicide a few weeks ago, where a 77-year-old man shot himself in the head outside the Greek Parliament. That was the public face of what's gone wrong.
Nigel Farage
#32. A man of good sense but of little faith, whose compassion seemed to lead him to church as often as he went there, said to me; 'that he liked to have concerts, and fairs, and churches, and other public amusements go on.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#33. 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
#34. The literary man has a circle of the chosen few who read him and become his only public ... What more natural than that he should write for those who, even if they do not pay him, at least understand him?
Amado Nervo
#35. That part of a work of one author found in another is not of itself piracy, or sufficient to support an action; a man may adopt part of the work of another; he may so make use of another's labors for the promotion of science and the benefit of the public.
Edward Law, 1st Earl Of Ellenborough
#36. No professional politician is ever actually in favor of public economy. It is his implacable enemy, and he knows it. All professional politicians are dedicated wholeheartedly to waste and corruption. They are the enemies of every decent man.
H.L. Mencken
#37. There is a thought that poverty is a public policy failure; poverty is man-made by action and non-action: poverty can be eliminated.
Benjamin Mkapa
#38. Instead of preparing men for life French schools solely prepare them to occupy public functions, in which success can be attained without any necessity for
self-direction or the exhibition of the least glimmer of personal initiative.
Gustave Le Bon
#39. In public, you're Joss Butler. Cool, self-possessed. In bed, you're Jocelyn Butler - you're hot, babe. Uncontrolled. Needy. Sweet," he breathed. "I like that I know that. I don't like the fact that other men do too.
Samantha Young
#40. A public man has no right to let his actions be determined by particular interests. He does the same thing as a judge who accepts a bribe. Like a judge he must consider what is right, not what is advantageous to a party or class.
Lord Acton
#41. Municipal laws are a supply to the wisdom of each individual; and, at the same time, by restraining the natural liberty of men, make private interest submit to the interest of the public.
David Hume
#42. I am out in public and using the phone. I am in a phone booth, got the phone in my hand and a man taps on the glass and says You using the phone? Nope, I'm superman, i am just looking for my costume. Here's your sign!
Bill Engvall
#43. Thus men of more enlighten'd genius and more intrepid spirit must compose themselves to the risque of public censure, and the contempt of their jealous contemporaries, in order to lead ignorant and prejudic'd minds into more happy and successful methods.
Jon Jones
#44. Breast feeding activists plan to descend on Washington for a public breast feeding demonstration. Also descending on Washington, thousands of men saying, 'What? I'm looking at the baby.'
Conan O'Brien
#45. As the prevailing voices in the public spotlight are predominantly men, stepping into the spotlight with the truth of who you are as a woman is political change.
Tabby Biddle
#46. The more efficient causes of progress seem to consist of a good education during youth whilst the brain is impressible, and of a high standard of excellence, inculcated by the ablest and best men, embodied in the laws, customs and traditions of the nation, and enforced by public opinion.
Charles Darwin
#47. Public displays of inappropriate behavior are a favorite hobby of mine, a cheap thrill.
Willow Madison
#48. Men fall in private long before they fall in public.
J.C. Ryle
#49. Public opinion is a permeating influence, and it exacts obedience to itself; it requires us to drink other men's thoughts, to speak other men's words, to follow other men's habits.
Walter Bagehot
#50. I call therefore a complete and generous education that which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully and magnanimously all the offices both private and public, of peace and war.
John Milton
#51. As far as the lack of hits goes, I think perhaps it's because I've played a lot of different roles and have not created a persona that the public can latch on to. I have played everything from psychopathic killers to romantic leading men, and in picking such diverse roles I have avoided typecasting.
Jeff Bridges
#52. When we speak of power, we mean man's control over the minds and actions of other men. By political power we refer to the mutual relations of control among the holders of public authority and between the latter and the people at large.
Hans J. Morgenthau
#53. I think with you, that nothing is of more importance for the public weal, than to form and train up youth in wisdom and virtue. Wise and good men are in my opinion, the strength of the state; more so than riches or arms.
Benjamin Franklin
#54. He hated the men floating in sleep in the big stone houses. Because their lives were ordered and their rooms tidy. Because they got up every morning and did their public work. Because they weren't going to dynamite their factories and have naked parties in the fire.
Leonard Cohen
#55. Many 'experts' don't possess the imagination or vision or any of the logistical expertise required to achieve malaria eradication. Their opinions shouldn't be allowed to hold back men and women who do possess these qualities from achieving the 'impossible.
T.K. Naliaka
#56. Questions, Hypothetical: Needn't be answered. No one knows why.
Schools, Public: They teach you to stand on your own two feet. 'No doors on the lavatories. That sorts the men from the boys'.
Snobbery, Inverted: The worst kind. No need to explain why.
William Donaldson
#57. All appointments hurt. Five friends are made cold or hostile for every appointment; no new friends are made. All patronage is perilous to men of real ability or merit. It aids only those who lack other claims to public support.
Rutherford B. Hayes
#58. Aaron Spelling always had his finger on the pulse of pop culture, he knew what the public wanted to see. He was one of the most loyal men in this business and believed in me at a time in my career when no one else would. My prayers are with his family.
Alyssa Milano
#59. Until ... the promiscuous woman is recognized, not only in law but in public opinion, as being neither better nor worse than the promiscuous man, equality has not been won in the moral sphere.
Alison Roberta Noble Neilans
#60. The public weal requires that men should betray, and lie, and massacre.
Michel De Montaigne
#61. The number of those who do selfless public service and those who serve without expecting any return, should increase. Their sterling qualities should show the way to the people at large. Their life would be a model to show how man should conduct himself in public life.
Periyar E.V. Ramasamy
#62. The public interest may be presumed to be what men would choose if they saw clearly, thought rationally, acted disinterestedly and benevolently.
Walter Lippmann
#63. The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.
Plato
#64. 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
#65. How, Yusef wondered, can two men joke like that and tomorrow be enemies. Perhaps they'd been enemies yesterday. He decided public servants weren't human.
Thomas Pynchon
#66. A man, if he be active and energetic, can hardly fail also, be he never so selfish, of benefiting the general public interest.
Benjamin Butler
#67. The two men were greedily hunched over the table, like two wolves disputing a carcass, but their muttered speech in the echoing hall resembled more the grunting of pigs. One was less than a wolf: he was a public prosecutor. The other was more than a pig, he was a chief commissioner of police.
Jan Neruda
#68. In cities where peace and the arts flourish, men are more consumed by jealousy, worry, and anxiety than they are in cities under the blight of a besieging army. Private sorrows are more bitter than public suffering.
Voltaire
#69. In private matters everyone is equal before the law. In public matters, when it is a question of putting power and responsibility into the hands of one man rather than another, what counts is not rank or money, but the ability to do the job well.
Pericles
#70. Modern war, modern international hostility is, I believe, possible only through the stupid illiteracy of the mass of men and the conceit and intellectual indolence of rulers and those who feed the public mind.
H.G.Wells
#72. The problem of power is how to achieve its responsible use rather than its irresponsible and indulgent use; of how to get men of power to live for the public rather than off the public.
John F. Kennedy
#73. In like manner, the disbelief of a Divine Providence renders a man uncapable of holding any public station; for, since kings avow themselves to be the deputies of Providence.
Jonathan Swift
#74. There is an enormous pressure placed on gay novelists because they are the only spokespeople. The novelist's first obligation is to be true to his own vision, not to be some sort of common denominator or public relations man to all gay people.
Edmund White
#76. The danger of illicit sex influences is, and always has been, in inverse proportion to the degree to which women approximatedto equality with men, in social dignity and in opportunity for public responsibility.
Mary Corinna Putnam Jacobi
#77. Historically, women have pushed each other into, and supported each other within, intellectual and public realms to which men rarely extended invitations, let alone any promise of equality.
Rebecca Traister
#78. The public, as a whole, finds reassurance in longevity, and, after the necessary interlude of reaction, is disposed to recognize extreme old age as a sign of excellence. The long-liver has triumphed over at least one of man's initial handicaps: the brevity of life.
Vita Sackville-West
#79. Now you need young men, bright young men, with minds asking 'how' rather than 'why,' and who are good at masking, at blending, I should say, their personal interests with vague public ideals.
Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa
#80. The French have a saying that whatever excellence a man may exhibit in a public station he is very apt to be ridiculous in a private one.
Charles Caleb Colton
#81. Women have to be very vigilant, and demand the very best in public schools, health care and pay, those things that men and women of this state value are at risk.
Bev Perdue
#82. The steel workers have now buried their dead, while the widows weep and watch their orphaned children become objects of public charity. The murder of these unarmed men has never been publicly rebuked by any authoritative officer of the state or federal government.
John L. Lewis
#83. Since when do grown men and women, who presume to hold high government office and exercise what they think of as "moral leadership," require ethics officers to tell them whether it is or isn't permissible to grab the secretary's behind or redirect public funds to their own personal advantage?
Meg Greenfield
#84. 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
#85. Plato long ago pointed out the importance of being governed by men with sufficient sense of responsibility and comprehension of public duties to be very reluctant to undertake the work of governing.
George Bernard Shaw
#86. As my object was not myself, I set out with the determination, and happily with the disposition, of not being moved by praise or censure, friendship or calumny, nor of being drawn from my purpose by any personal altercation; and the man who cannot do this, is not fit for a public character.
Thomas Paine
#87. When I started out in public life there used to be a saying we'd hear from time to time, that every man who runs for public office will claim that he was born in a log cabin he built with his own hands. Well, my mother knew better. And she made sure I did too.
William J. Clinton
#88. If my lips teach the public that men are made mad by bad treatment, and if the police are taught that they may exasperate to madness men they persecute and ill treat, my life will not be entirely thrown away.
Ned Kelly
#89. I admired Hitler, for instance, because he came from being a little man with almost no formal education, up to power. I admire him for being such a good public speaker and for what he did with it.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
#90. Man, being made reasonable, and so a thinking creature, there is nothing more worthy of his being than the right direction and employment of his thoughts; since upon this depends both his usefulness to the public, and his own present and future benefit in all respects.
William Penn
#91. By encouraging men to spy and report on one another, by making it in the private interest of large numbers of citizens to evade the controls, and by making actions illegal that are in the public interest, the controls undermine individual morality.
Milton Friedman
#93. When women and men can shed an equal quantity of tears in public, that's when we'll have equal power.
Madeleine M. Kunin
#94. When men differ in opinion, both sides ought equally to have the advantage of being heard by the public; when Truth and Error have fair play, the former is always an overmatch for the latter.
Benjamin Franklin
#95. No man has a right to disturb the public peace, by personally resisting the execution of a law however bad. He ought to acquiesce, using at the same time the utmost powers of his reason, to promote its repeal.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
#96. Gough was a serious student but found time to gain a blue in rowing; he was later to say that the sport was an apt one for men in public life because you could face one way while going in the other.
Mungo MacCallum
#97. If a man ... .who's playing in front of the public, is being well paid, and he doesn't dedicate himself to the job, I'd be hard on him. If I could I would put him in jail, out of the road of society. Because he's a menace
Bill Shankly
#98. I am sure that in estimating every man's value either in private or public life, a pure integrity is the quality we take first into calculation, and that learning and talents are only the second.
Thomas Jefferson
#99. Having had virtually no contact with the outside world for the last few weeks, Evan had temporarily forgotten the social norms governing shopping conduct or approaching celebrities in public.
Zack Love
#100. The reflections and histories of men and women throughout the world are contained in books ... America's greatness is not only recorded in books, but it is also dependent upon each and every citizen being able to utilize public libraries.
Terence Cooke
