Public Interest Quotes

In the long run, the public interest depends on private virtue.

People who intend only to seek their own benefit are “led by an invisible hand to serve a public interest which was no part of” their intention. I say that there is a reverse invisible hand: People who intend to serve only the public interest are led by an invisible hand to serve private interests which was no part of their intention.

We believe PR should be practiced to serve the public interest, to develop mutual understanding between organizations and their publics.

I think that different leaders, whether it`s Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, or Paul Ryan, saying that we`re not going to turn on each other, which is exactly what ISIS wants. I think that`s what this moment calls for and I think, right now, you see who are the pandering demagogues, and who are the people who really have a higher standard and the best public interest at heart.

. . when the target of crime is armed, there is more law present, more public policy present, and more public interest served than by all 20,000 gun laws in force.

As a public interest lawyer, your fund of injustice will never be empty.

The only thing that shocks me is public interest in people who shouldn't be interesting at all, like Jade Goody. We've gone past Andy Warhol and all those clever, arty and witty things that were done and said in the sixties...the fifteen minutes, and so on. Now your celebrities don't have to do anything, they're just voted in. And that shocks me.

He that will sell his fame will also sell the public interest.

Since there is no such entity as 'the public,' since the public is merely a number of individuals, the idea that 'the public interest' supersedes private interests and rights can have but one meaning: that the interests and rights of some individuals take precedence over the interests and rights of others.

I'm an entertainer. I don't go round saying I'm a paragon of virtue, so that is clearly not in the public interest.

My whole model, from the beginning, was not to personally publish a single document. I provided these documents to journalists because I didn't want my biases to decide what's in the public interest and what is not.

Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers. I think the human race has no future if it doesn't go into space. I therefore want to encourage public interest in space.

What do we mean by the public interest? Some say the public interest is merely what interests the public. I disagree.

If you look at the way all of the new reform movements dedicated to the public interest are living and thriving on the Internet, I do think there is still some considerable hope that the full participation of individuals in that conversation of democracy can once again restore the integrity of the way our democracy works.

They may then be willing to cast principled votes based on an educated understanding of the public interest in the face of polls suggesting that the public itself may have quite a different understanding of where its interest lies.

Public interest criteria does not mean criteria that the public decides are in its interest. It means that the elite - via various appointed bodies - decide what the public's interest is for them.

One of the most powerful defences the media can offer for controversial actions is, of course, public interest.

I'm saying we need to be aware of it, and we need to be able to distinguish when political developments are occurring that are contrary to the public interest.

If we simply follow the rules that a state imposes upon us when that state is acting contrary to the public interest, we're not actually improving anything. We're not changing anything.

The American Labor Movement has consistently demonstrated its devotion to the public interest. It is, and has been, good for all America.

Harshness towards individuals who flout the laws and commands of the state is for the public good; no greater crime against the public interest is possible than to show leniency to those who violate it.

Writing is not chewing your nails and picking your teeth, but a matter of public interest.

If the Federal Reserve pursues a policy which Congress or the President believes not to be in the public interest, there is nothing Congress can do to reverse the policy. Nor is there anything the people can do. Such bastions of unaccountable power are undemocratic. The Federal Reserve System must be reformed, so that it is answerable to the elected representatives of the people.

The trouble is that privacy is at once essential to, and in tension with, both freedom and security. A cabinet minister who keeps his mistress in satin sheets at the French taxpayer's expense cannot justly object when the press exposes his misuse of public funds. Our freedom to scrutinise the conduct of public figures trumps that minister's claim to privacy. The question is: where and how do we draw the line between a genuine public interest and that which is merely what interests the public?

Broadcasters have a responsibility to serve the public interest and protect Americans from objectionable content, particularly during the hours when children are likely to be watching.

We have a responsibility to hold both sides accountable to the public interest, but that doesn't mean we reflexively and artificially hold both sides 'equally' accountable when the facts don't warrant that.

I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest. There are all sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn't turn over, because harming people isn't my goal. Transparency is.

I think it's a sign of a gotcha political system that's looking to take down public interest candidates that they make a big deal out of a comment to a parent concerned about the exposure of young children to Wi-Fi. Now it turns out that Wi-Fi is actually untested. A large study by the NIH [National Institutes of Health] released a month ago raised serious questions about whether kids ought to be exposed, whether young children ought to be exposed to Wi-Fi. And you know, I'm not saying they should or they shouldn't but that this should be studied. Absolutely it should be studied.

It's important to know that, unlike lawyers, land surveyors put the public interest first. That means we're not biased by our client - this means that the property line will be drawn in the most equitable position, regardless of which neighbor is paying the bill.

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.

In the public interest, therefore, it is better that we lose the services of the exceptions who are good Judges after they are seventy and avoid the presence on the Bench of men who are not able to keep up with the work, or to perform it satisfactorily.

In 1998, I founded the American Center for Law and Justice, probably the premier public interest law firm in America defending the rights of believers.

For over a century, popular struggles in the democracies have used the nation-state to temper raw capitalism. The power of voters has offset the power of capital. But as national barriers have come down in the name of freer commerce, so has the capacity of governments to manage capitalism in a broad public interest. So the real issue is not "trade" but democratic governance.

The issuing power [of money] should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.

I am convinced that of all the people on the two sides of the great curtain, the space pilots are the least likely to hate each other. Like the late Erich von Holst, I believe that the tremendous and otherwise not quite explicable public interest in space flight arises from the subconscious realization that it helps to preserve peace. May it continue to do so!

Now listen to the first three aims of the corporatist movement in Germany, Italy and France during the 1920s. These were developed by the people who went on to become part of the Fascist experience: (1) shift power directly to economic and social interest groups; (2) push entrepreneurial initiative in areas normally reserved for public bodies; (3) obliterate the boundaries between public and private interest -- that is, challenge the idea of the public interest. This sounds like the official program of most contemporary Western governments.

All "public interest' legislation (and any distribution of money taken by force from some men for the unearned benefit of others) comes down ultimately to the grant of an undefined undefinable, non-objective, arbitrary power to some government officials. The worst aspect of it is not that such a power can be used dishonestly, but that it cannot be used honestly. The wisest man in the world, with the purest integrity, cannot find a criterion for the just, equitable, rational application of an unjust, inequitable, irrational principle.

The role of campaign contributions in our political system and the role of lobbyists have now reached levels that are quite unhealthy for the operations of our democracy. But the antidote, as in past eras of lobbyist excess, is for more involvement by citizens to build pressure on members of the House and Senate to serve the public interest.

The genius of the tradition as it has developed in America is the unique combination of giving and voluntary service in behalf of independent organizations and institutions devoted to the public interest.

At the heart of the First Amendment is the recognition of the fundamental importance of the free flow of ideas and opinions on matters of public interest and concern. The freedom to speak one's mind is not only an aspect of individual liberty - and thus a good unto itself - but also is essential to the common quest for truth and the vitality of society as a whole. We have therefore been particularly vigilant to ensure that individual expressions of ideas remain free from governmentally imposed sanctions.

Allowing the U.S. government to intimidate its people with threats of retaliation for revealing wrongdoing is contrary to the public interest.

Every woman who has any margin of time or money to spare should adopt some one public interest, some philanthropic undertaking,or some social agitation of reform, and give to that cause whatever time and work she may be able to afford.

Also, the Federal Advisory Committee should be enlarged and reorganized. Members should be chosen for the broadest possible representation of the public interest, their main qualification: ability.

Advertising justifies its existence when used in the public interest-it is much too powerful a tool to use solely for commercial purposes.

But I must add that the U.S. government must not, as by this order, undertake to run the churches. When an individual, in a church or out of it, becomes dangerous to the public interest, he must be checked; but let the churches, as such take care of themselves. It will not do for the U.S. to appoint Trustees, Supervisors, or other agents for the churches.

No public interest is anything other or nobler than a massed accumulation of private interests.

Once a term like "open source" entered our vocabulary, one could recast the whole public policy calculus in very different terms, so that instead of discussing the public interest, we are discussing the interests of individual software developers, while claiming that this is a discussion about "innovation" and "progress," not "accountability" or "security."

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.

It's an intolerable abuse of power to have employees who are supposed to be advancing the public interest actually working on political campaigns.

I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time - [...] when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.