Quotes

Quotes about Public


You have reached the pinnacle of success as soon as you become uninterested in money, compliments, or publicity.

Thomas Wolfe

To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.

Theodore Roosevelt

Farce follow'd Comedy, and reach'd her prime. In ever-laughing Foote's fantastic time; Mad wag! who pardon'd none, nor spared the best, And turn'd some very serious things to jest. Nor church nor state escaped his public sneers, Arms nor the gown, priests, lawyers, volunteers; "Alas, poor Yorick!" now forever mute! Whoever loves a laugh must sigh for Foote. We smile, perforce, when histrionic scenes Ape the swoln dialogue of kings and queens, When "Chrononhotonthelogos must die," And Arthur struts in mimic majesty.

Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron)

The Sick Lion A lion, unable from old age and infirmities to provide himself with food by force, resolved to do so by artifice. He returned to his den, and lying down there, pretended to be sick, taking care that his sickness should be publicly known. The beasts expressed their sorrow, and came one by one to his den, where the Lion devoured them. After many of the beasts had thus disappeared, the Fox discovered the trick and presenting himself to the Lion, stood on the outside of the cave, at a respectful distance, and asked him how he was. I am very middling, replied the Lion, but why do you stand without? Pray enter within to talk with me. No, thank you, said the Fox. I notice that there are many prints of feet entering your cave, but I see no trace of any returning. He is wise who is warned by the misfortunes of others.

Aesop

The Mischievous Dog A dog used to run up quietly to the heels of everyone he met, and to bite them without notice. His master suspended a bell about his neck so that the Dog might give notice of his presence wherever he went. Thinking it a mark of distinction, the Dog grew proud of his bell and went tinkling it all over the marketplace. One day an old hound said to him: Why do you make such an exhibition of yourself? That bell that you carry is not, believe me, any order of merit, but on the contrary a mark of disgrace, a public notice to all men to avoid you as an ill mannered dog. Notoriety is often mistaken for fame.

Aesop

The Fox Who Had Lost His Tail A fox caught in a trap escaped, but in so doing lost his tail. Thereafter, feeling his life a burden from the shame and ridicule to which he was exposed, he schemed to convince all the other Foxes that being tailless was much more attractive, thus making up for his own deprivation. He assembled a good many Foxes and publicly advised them to cut off their tails, saying that they would not only look much better without them, but that they would get rid of the weight of the brush, which was a very great inconvenience. One of them interrupting him said, If you had not yourself lost your tail, my friend, you would not thus counsel us.

Aesop

The Thief and His Mother A boy stole a lesson-book from one of his schoolfellows and took it home to his Mother. She not only abstained from beating him, but encouraged him. He next time stole a cloak and brought it to her, and she again commended him. The Youth, advanced to adulthood, proceeded to steal things of still greater value. At last he was caught in the very act, and having his hands bound behind him, was led away to the place of public execution. His Mother followed in the crowd and violently beat her breast in sorrow, whereupon the young man said, I wish to say something to my Mother in her ear. She came close to him, and he quickly seized her ear with his teeth and bit it off. The Mother upbraided him as an unnatural child, whereon he replied, Ah! if you had beaten me when I first stole and brought to you that lesson-book, I should not have come to this, nor have been thus led to a disgraceful death.

Aesop

Expressing anger is a form of public littering. -Willard Gaylin.

Willard Gaylin

The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art's audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public.

Paul Gauguin

Writers, especially when they act in a body and with one direction, have great influence on the public mind.

Edmund Burke

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

Francis Bacon

Journalism has always existed in two different realities . . . the economic marketplace and [the] special institution to serve the public interest. The traditional balance between those two has become destabilized. Economic reality has taken over.

Joan Konner

Having been unpopular in high school is not just cause for book publications.

Fran Lebowitz

At the bottom of a good deal of the bravery that appears in the world there lurks a miserable cowardice. Men will face powder and steel because they cannot face public opinion.

Edwin Hubbel Chapin

Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.

Jonathan Swift

The noble sister of Publicola, The moon of Rome, chaste as the icicle That's curded by the frost from purest snow And hangs on Dian's temple--dear Valeria!

William Shakespeare

You can't cheat the public for long.

Tennessee Ernie Ford

Palm Sunday Commemoration of William Augustus Muhlenberg of New York, Priest, 1877 The entrance into Jerusalem [on Palm Sunday] has all the elements of the theatre of the absurd: the poor king; truth comes riding on a donkey; symbolic actions—even parading without a permit! Also, when Jesus "set his face to go to Jerusalem," what was involved was direct action, an open confrontation and public demonstration of the incompatibility of evil with the Kingdom of God.

David Kirk

The difficulties arise when we ask how much this polar complementarity [of the sexes] should be reflected in the structure of social life, both domestic and public. The New Testament [again, and notoriously, in the person of St Paul] assumes that there will be places other than the bedroom in which men and women assume consciously differentiated roles. They will do so in the affairs of the home, in which the wife is to "submit" to her husband (Eph. 5:22ff) as head. They will do so even outside the context of family life, since man is "head" of woman in some sense; in quite another context, when the Church is at worship (I Cor. 11:2ff). In order that St Paul should not be misjudged, we must note--(a) that this relational ordering of male and female presupposes a fundamental generic equality (I Cor. 11:1 ff); and (b) that the "submission" of the wife is a special case of a "submission" of all Christians to one another, and complements a husband's love that is to be expressed in self-sacrifice (Eph. 5:2lff, 25ff). The apostle is not an apologist for male tyranny.

Oliver O'donovan

Feast of Columba, Abbot of Iona, Missionary, 597 Commemoration of Ephrem of Syria, Deacon, Hymnographer, Teacher, 373 Although it is indisputable that our Lord founded a church, it is an unproved assumption that the church is an aggregation of visible and organized societies. The theory upon which the public worship of the primitive churches proceeded was that each community was complete in itself, and that, in every act of public worship, every element of the community was present.

Edwin Hatch

The first requisite of a good citizen in this republic of ours is that he should be able and willing to pull his weight.

Theodore Roosevelt

We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.

Bryan White

News is that which comes from the North, East, West and South, and if it comes from only one point on the compass, then it is a class publication and not news.

Benjamin Disraeli

The great secret of doctors, known only to their wives, but still hidden from the public, is that most things get better by themselves; most things, in fact, are better in the morning.

Lewis Thomas

The cell phone has transformed public places into giant phone-a-thons in which callers exist within narcissistic cocoons of private conversations. Like faxes, computer modems and other modern gadgets that have clogged out lives with phony urgency, cell phones represent the 20th Century's escalation of imaginary need. We didn't need cell phones until we had them. Clearly, cell phones cause not only a breakdown of courtesy, but the atrophy of basic skills.

Mary Schmich

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