This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Deep down, below the surface of the average man’s conscience, he hears a voice whispering. “There is something not right,” no matter how much his rightness is supported by public opinion or by the moral code." - Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung
"The art of crisis management, now widely acknowledged to be the essence of statecraft, owes its vogue to the merger of politics and spectacle. Propaganda seeks to create in the public a chronic sense of crisis, which in turn justifies the expansion of executive power and the secrecy surrounding it." - Christopher Kit Lasch
"Public opinion is founded to a great extent on a property basis. What lessens the value of the property is opposed, what enhances its value is favored." - Abraham Lincoln
"It is loyalty to great ends, even though forced to combine the small and opposing motives of selfish men to accomplish them; it is the anchored cling to solid principles of duty and action, which knows how to swing with the tide, but is never carried away by it – that we demand in public men, and not sameness of policy, or a conscientious persistency in what is impracticable." - James Russell Lowell
"[McClaughry’s Law of Public Policy] Politicians who vote huge expenditures to alleviate problems get reelected; those who propose structural changes to prevent problems get early retirement." - John McClaughry
"Self-respect cannot be purchased. It is never for sale. It cannot be fabricated out of public relations. It comes to us when we are alone, in quiet moments, in quiet places, when we suddenly realize that knowing the good, we have gone for the great." - James A. Michener, fully James Albert Michener
"Luxury either comes of riches or makes them necessary; it corrupts at once rich and poor, the rich by possession and the poor by covetousness; it sells the country to softness and vanity, and takes away from the state all its citizens, to make them slaves one to another, and one and all to public opinion." - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"A new public opinion must be created privately and unobtrusively. The existing one is maintained by the Press, by propaganda, by organization, and by financial and other influences which are at its disposal. This unnatural way of spreading ideas must be opposed by the natural one, which goes from man to man and relies solely on the truth of the thoughts and the hearer’s receptiveness for new truth." - Albert Schweitzer
"It is the supreme test of government whether its machinery is adequate for repressing the selfish undertakings of cliques formed on special interests and saving the public from raids of plunderers." - William Graham Sumner
"Men of colossal fortunes are in effect, if not in fact, trustees for the public." - Samuel Tilden, fully Samuel Jones Tilden
"Article 18 - Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others, and in public or in private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance." - United Nations NULL
"Governors must never forget that he who is unable to run his own house and family is still less competent to be entrusted with public matters." - Pachacutec Inca Yupanqui, sometimes referred to as Pachacuti
"I know of no book which has been a source of brutality and sadistic conduct, both public and private, that can compare with the Bible." - Lord Paget, Sir James Paget, 1st Baronet
"The motivating force for change has to come from an energized, empowered public." - Paul Wellstone, fully Paul David Wellstone
"The secret to quality public education has never been a big mystery. You need good teachers and you need small enough classes so those teachers can do their work. Period." - Michael Winerip
"Every individual... intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention... By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectively than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good." - Adam Smith
"The time and study, the genius, knowledge, and application requisite to qualify an eminent teacher of the sciences, are at least equal to what is necessary for the greatest practitioners in law and physic. But the usual reward of the eminent teacher bears no proportion to that of the lawyer or physician... The inequality is upon the whole, perhaps, rather advantageous than hurtful to the public. It may somewhat degrade the profession of a public teacher; but the cheapness of literary education is surely an advantage which greatly overbalances this trifling inconveniency." - Adam Smith
"As every individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed; neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was not part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of his intention. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it." - Adam Smith
"By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he [the owner of capital] intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectively than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good." - Adam Smith
"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." - Adam Smith
"Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse." - Adlai Ewing Stevenson
"It is a just observation that the people commonly intend the public good. This often applies to their very errors. But their good sense would despise the adulator who should pretend that they always reason right about the means of promoting it. They known from experience that they sometimes err; and the wonder is that they so seldom err as they do, beset, as they continually are, by the wiles of parasites and sycophants, by the snares of the ambitious, the avaricious, the desperate, by the artifices of men who possess their confidence more then they deserve it, and of those who seek to possess rather than to deserve it." - Alexander Hamilton
"The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precaution for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust... The most effectual one is such a limitation of the term of appointments as will maintain a proper responsibility to the people." - Alexander Hamilton
"The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust." - Alexander Hamilton
"What is always needed in the appreciation of art, or life, is the larger perspective. Connections made, or at least attempted, where none existed before, the straining to encompass in one’s glance at the varied world the common thread, the unifying theme through immense diversity, a fearlessness of growth, of search, of looking, that enlarges the private and public world. And yet, in our particular society, it is the narrowed and narrowing view of life that often wins." - Alice Walker, fully Alice Malsenior Walker
"Politics is the conduct of public affairs for private advantage." - Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
"Everything you do or say is public relations." - Author Unknown NULL
"Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of the tribe." - Ayn Rand, born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum
"Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men." - Ayn Rand, born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum
"Without publicity there can be no public spirit, and without public spirit every nation must decay." - Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield
"The rarest and most admirable quality of public life, moral courage." - Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield
"All the important human advances that we know of since historical times began have been due to individuals of whom the majority faced virulent public opposition." - Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
"One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny." - Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
"There is… no point in deliberately flouting public opinion; this is still to be under its domination, though in a topsy-turvy way. But to be genuinely indifferent to it is both a strength and a source of happiness." - Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
"All men naturally hate one another. They employ lust as far as possible in the service of the public weal. But this is only a [pretense] and a false image of love; for at bottom it is only hate." - Blaise Pascal
"Know that many personal troubles cannot be solved merely as troubles, but must be understood in terms of public issues – and in terms of the problems of history-making. Know that the human meaning of public issues must be revealed by relating them to personal troubles – and to the problems of the individual life." -
"The public have more interest in the punishment of an injury than he who receives it." - Cato the Elder, Marcus Porius Cato, aka Censorius (the Censor), Sapiens (the Wise), Priscus (the Ancient) NULL
"Formerly, a public man needed a private secretary for a barrier between himself and the public. Nowadays he has a press secretary, to keep him properly in the public eye." - Daniel Boorstin, fully Daniel Joseph Boorstin
"Fundamentally, public opinion wins wars." - Dwight Eisenhower, fully Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower
"In the field of public education the doctrine of “separate but equal” has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." - Earl Warren
"Never expect to find perfection in men, in my commerce with my contemporaries I have found much human virtue. I have seen not a little public spirit; a real subordination of interest to duty; and a decent and regulated sensibility to honest fame and reputation. The age unquestionably produces daring profligates and insidious hypocrites. What then? Am I not to avail myself of whatever good is to be found in the world because of the mixture of evil that will always be in it? The smallness of the quantity in currency only heightens the value. They who raise suspicions on the good, on account of the behavior of ill men, are of the party of the latter." - Edmund Burke
"An enlightened self-interest, which, when well understood, they tell us will identify with an interest more enlarged and public." - Edmund Burke
"Public calamity is a mighty leveler." - Edmund Burke
"In the purer ages of the commonwealth, the use of arms was reserved for those ranks of citizens who had a country to love, a property to defend, and some share in enacting those laws, which it was their interest, as well as duty, to maintain. But in proportion as the public freedom was lost in extent of conquest, war was gradually improved into an art, and degraded into a trade." - Edward Gibbon
"The urgent consideration of the public safety may undoubtedly authorize the violation of every positive law. How far that or any other consideration may operate to dissolve the natural obligations of humanity and justice, is a doctrine of which I still desire to remain ignorant." - Edward Gibbon
"Laws that do not embody public opinion can never be enforced." - Elbert Green Hubbard