Quotes About Public Works

#1. Having always observed that public works are much less advantageously managed than the same are by private hands, I have thought it better for the public to go to market for whatever it wants which is to be found there; for there competition brings it down to the minimum value.

Thomas Jefferson

#2. There are a few obvious consequences and perhaps one subtle possibility. One obvious thing is that, to stimulate the economy, President Obama has committed to creating millions of green jobs that will leave a legacy - much as Roosevelt's public works did during the new deal.

Denis Hayes

#3. Let the punishments of criminals be useful. A hanged man is good for nothing; a man condemned to public works still serves the country, and is a living lesson.

Voltaire

#4. Cynically but accurately put, Americans oppose public intervention or regulation if it helps others, but favor it if it helps them - take social security, disaster relief, public works projects, for example.

Jon Meacham

#5. In taste and imagination, in the graces of style, in the arts of persuasion, in the magnificence of public works, the ancients were at least our equals.

Thomas B. Macaulay

#6. But public works, economic protectionism, cheap money, 'deficit-financed government spending,' and 'the animal spirits of the spendthrift' in the service of boosting 'consumption demand' ... Doesn't Keynesianism simply appeal to the worst in human nature?

Ilana Mercer

#7. If you really want to show power in its larger aspects, you need to show the effects on the powerless, for good or ill - the human cost of public works. That's what I try to do, show not only how power works but its effect on people.

Robert Caro

#8. Temporarily in 1934 I became a department head in the German Labor Front and dealt with the improvement of labor conditions in German factories. Then I was in charge of public works on the staff of Hess. I gave up both these activities in 1941.

Albert Speer

#9. If they had won, all they'd have thought about was making more money, the upper class. Abendsen, he's wrong; there would be no social reform, no welfare public works plans - the Anglo-Saxon plutocrats wouldn't have permitted it." Juliana thought, Spoken like a devout Fascist.

Philip K. Dick

#10. Leading the boom of 1838 were state governments, who, finding themselves with the unexpected windfall of a distributed surplus from the federal government, proceeded to spend the money wildly and borrow even more extravagantly on public works and other uneconomic forms of 'investment.'

Murray Rothbard

#11. History does not provide any example of capital accumulation brought about by a government. As far as governments invested in the construction of roads, railroads, and other useful public works, the capital needed was provided by the savings of individual citizens and borrowed by the government.

Ludwig Von Mises

#12. We stop when we reach the top, climb out, shivering in the cold and ghostly mist under wind-blasted trees, to read the sign erected by the Public Works Department: "You have reached Trumseng La, Bhutan's highest road pass. Check Your Brakes. Bash On Regardless. Thank you."

Jamie Zeppa

#13. At Camp One we were met by Director of Public Works Warwick Greene, grim and grimy. He has been working himself to death to make this transportation plan a success.

William Cameron Forbes

#14. See ... What I felt they should have done, for our first public works project, is build a giant wall ... across the entire border of Canada. Because that's where the cold air comes from.

Lewis Black

#15. My father worked for governments all his life as an engineer and public works director.

Edward Tufte

#16. Public works are not accomplished by the miraculous power of a magic wand. They are paid for by funds taken away from the citizens.

Ludwig Von Mises

#17. What saved the economy, and the New Deal was the enormous public-works project known as World War II, which finally provided a fiscal stimulus adequate to the economy's needs.

Paul Krugman

#18. 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

#19. The government is a very large constructor. They have schools, colleges, hospitals and courts, offices. We are trying to influence the public works department to adopt green buildings.

Jamshyd Godrej

#20. What mothers need, as well as fathers, spouses, and the children of aging parents, is an entire national infrastructure of care, every bit as important as the physical infrastructure of roads, bridges, tunnels, broadband, parks and public works.

Anne-Marie Slaughter

#21. We must develop a federal program of public works, retraining, and jobs for all - so that none, white or black, will have cause to feel threatened
... There is nothing except shortsightedness to prevent us from guaranteeing an annual minimum and livable income for every American family.

Martin Luther King Jr.

#22. Most people are resistant to ideas, especially new ones. But they are
fascinated by character. Extravagance of personality is one way in which
the pill can be sugared and the public induced to look at works dealing
with ideas.

Paul Johnson

#23. And one of the things I've tried to do in my first months in office is to give more Georgians - reporters and members of the general public alike - a closer look at how their government works.

Roy Barnes

#24. Newspapers with declining circulations can complain all they want about their readers and even say they have no taste. But you will still go out of business over time. A newspaper is not a public trust - it has a business model that either works or it doesn't.

Marc Andreessen

#25. What vast additions to the Conveniences and Comforts of Living might Mankind have acquired, if the Money spent in Wars had been employ'd in Works of public utility!

Benjamin Franklin

#26. Discussions of Western civilization are too often confined to works of high art that reflect a relatively narrow element of public taste and experience.

Ibn Warraq

#27. If I buy a car, I use the car, you don't, and the market for cars works pretty well. But there are many other sorts of goods, often very important goods, which are not provided well through the market. Often, these go under the heading of public goods.

Eric Maskin

#28. It is a public financing system that everybody knows is antiquated. It no longer works. Nobody can become president based on that system.

Bernie Sanders

#29. Government works best under the glare of public scrutiny. Absent such scrutiny, abuses occur.

Stephen Hawking

#30. Ageism works in both directions. As a teenager in the public eye, people would talk condescendingly to me. When you get older there's this feeling that you have to start carving up your face and body. Right now I'm in the middle ground - I think women in their thirties are taken seriously.

Alanis Morissette

#31. Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried, or childless men.

Francis Bacon

#32. As for techniques and processes, as seen in the works themselves, neither public nor artists will find anything about them here. Those things are learned in the studio and the public is interested only in the results.

Charles Baudelaire

#33. Polling only works in a country without a depressed, frightened populace. Where the public trusts authorities enough to tell them the truth without fear of retribution.

Rick Perlstein

#34. If you, or any public-spirited programmer, wanted to figure out what the software on your machine is really doing, tough luck. It's illegal to reverse engineer the source code of commercial software to find out how it works.

Clive Thompson

#35. Sometimes time actually works against you if you refuse to face the relevant issues and explain to the public what is at stake.

George Soros

#36. What we have at present is a system of loss socialism. Whatever goes wrong is shouldered by the general public and anything that works is privatised. Worshippers of market freedom have suspended the most important economic principle: Risk and liability go hand in hand.

Sigmar Gabriel

#37. When I grew up, there were locked cabinets in public libraries. You needed parental permission if you were under eighteen. I was let down by the overblown reputations of some hardcore fictional works.

Allan Gurganus

#38. I think there is a good reason why the propaganda system works that way. It recognizes that the public will not support the actual policies. Therefore it is important to prevent any knowledge or understanding of them.

Noam Chomsky

#39. The public mind has by now so thoroughly grown out of humor with it as to make condemnation of capitalism and all its works a foregone conclusion
almost a requirement of the etiquette of discussion.

Joseph Alois Schumpeter

#40. My mom is a public school teacher and works with third grade students.

Jane McGonigal

#41. No government proposal more complicated than "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private" ever works.

P. J. O'Rourke

#42. The game of cricket existed long before I was born. It will be played centuries after my demise. During my career I was privileged to give the public my interpretation of its character in the same way that a pianist might interpret the works of Beethoven.

Donald Bradman

#43. All I'm asking for is the law that's been on the books for the last 33 years, no public funding for abortion. We are both saying the same thing, pro-life, pro-choice. Let's find the language that works for both of us so we can pass health care.

Bart Stupak

#44. Any urbanist has to appreciate New York City and the way it works. The public transit is astonishing.

Mick Cornett

#45. All of the great Disney works took works that were in the public domain and remixed them.

Lawrence Lessig

#46. If opportunity knocks, let it in. But with the way things are nowadays-I'd rather meet opportunity somewhere that's more public. I could meet opportunity in a coffee shop, but what if it works there? Well, I could suggest my grandma's basement.
-James Lee Schmidt and Jarod Kintz

James Lee Schmidt

#47. I like thinking of myself as invisible. I find it a very advantageous way to live. Unfortunately, its not the way the music business works. If you don't create some kind of public image, it gets created for you.

Tom Verlaine

#48. Like surgeons trying to save a life, the conservators and preservers at New York City museums dedicate themselves to ensuring the longevity of works of art for public view.

Simon Van Booy

#49. What works in a relationship of very public people is not making the relationship public - keeping it as personal as it can be. It's the only way it is real.

Salma Hayek

#50. First one works alone through the mind, then before the public through experience.

Eleanora Duse

#51. Honestly, if the public still wants to hear me in some works, I have to go down a half step.

Placido Domingo

#52. Most satirists are indeed a public scourge; Their mildest physic is a farrier's purge; Their acrid temper turns, as soon as stirr'd, The milk of their good purpose all to curd. Their zeal begotten, as their works rehearse, By lean despair upon an empty purse.

William Cowper

#53. No Child Left Behind ... is a giraffe with an elephant's body ... You can't take the vision of Ted Kennedy and merge it to the public policy of George Bush and come out with anything that works.

Steve Rauschenberger

#54. And the American public was able to make up their own mind whether this verdict was a just verdict or not. So I think there's a lot of value in the public being able to see how the system works or doesn't work, so I think there's a definite value there.

Lance Ito

#55. The performances of my works in the last 10 years are probably equal to all the previous years put together. There are so many venues now and there is a completely new public for opera that's grown up outside of the traditional core opera public.

Carlisle Floyd

#56. Many of those who argue for vouchers say that they simply want to use competition to improve public education. I don't think it works that way, and I've been watching this for a longtime.

Jonathan Kozol

#57. Censor, n. An officer of certain governments, employed to supress the works of genius. Among the Romans the censor was an inspector of public morals, but the public morals of modern nations will not bear inspection.

Ambrose Bierce

#58. The American public got to see for themselves every day, all day, how this trial progressed. There's a lot of value in the public being able to see how the system works.

Lance Ito

#59. I know I'm being judged, and anyone who works in the public eye will get some negativity at some point. It can be tough and it hurts. I can be very tough on myself. Occasionally, I hear or read something cruel and I'm shocked.

Deborra-Lee Furness

#60. A good number of works owe their success to the mediocrity of their authors' ideas, which match the mediocrity of those of the general public.

Nicolas Chamfort

#61. Let's talk about policing and public safety. Let's debate what works and what does not. We must abandon practices that do not work, and do more of the things that actually do work to save lives.

Martin O'Malley

#62. For every dollar that is spent on the (boondoggle) bridge a dollar will be taken away from taxpayers. If the bridge costs $1,000,000 the taxpayers will lose $1,000, 000. They will have that much taken away from them which they would otherwise have spent on the things they needed most.

Henry Hazlitt

#63. There are certain things in gun control that have a certain public appeal, but when you're legislating you need to look at the research on what works, what doesn't, and what really has an impact, recognizing you're never going to do away entirely with gun violence

Kim Campbell

#64. Most families aren't all in the public eye as we are. It works as a blessing. It works in our favor.

Khloe Kardashian

#65. I am a great foe of favoritism in public life, in private life, and even in the delicate relationship of an author to his works.

Joseph Conrad

#66. I react pragmatically. Where the market works, I'm for that. Where the government is necessary, I'm for that. I'm deeply suspicious of somebody who says, 'I'm in favor of privatization,' or, 'I'm deeply in favor of public ownership.' I'm in favor of whatever works in the particular case.

John Kenneth Galbraith

#67. Or in other works I have also projected the sound in a cube of loudspeakers. The sound can move vertically and diagonally at all speeds around the public.

Karlheinz Stockhausen

#68. Neoliberalism works best when there is formal electoral democracy, but when the population is diverted from the information, access, and public forums necessary for meaningful participation in decision making.

Noam Chomsky

#69. Self-interest, be it enlightened, works indirectly for the public good.

William H. Prescott

#70. I learned in a very public setting what works and doesn't work for a healthy lifestyle.

Michael De Luca

#71. The prosperity of a book lies in the minds of readers. Public knowledge and public taste fluctuate; and there come times when works which were once capable of instructing and delighting thousands lose their power, and works, before neglected, emerge into renown.

George Henry Lewes

#72. It is my conviction that the public always shows itself more honest in its spontaneity than do those who officially set themselves up as judges of works of art.

Igor Stravinsky

#73. The only artist who does not deserve respect is the one who works to please the public, for commercial success or for official success.

Jacques Maritain

#74. A civilian-based diplomacy supports noncommercial, nonprofit, and publicly-subsidized media to counteract the corporate-controlled, for-profit, private media that dominate political discourse; and works to place media control, ownership, and lobbying at the center of public policy debate.

Nancy Snow

#75. Anyone who works is a fool. I don't work - I merely inflict myself upon the public.

Robert Morley