Public Interest Quotes - Page 3

• People tend to assess the relative importance of issues by the ease with which they are retrieved from memory—and this is largely determined by the extent of coverage in the media. Frequently mentioned topics populate the mind even as others slip away from awareness. In turn, what the media choose to report corresponds to their view of what is currently on the public’s mind. It is no accident that authoritarian regimes exert substantial pressure on independent media. Because public interest is most easily aroused by dramatic events and by celebrities, media feeding frenzies are common

  Daniel Kahneman

  Memories, Independent, Views

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• 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.

  Frances Power Cobbe

  Responsibility, Giving, Agitation

  Frances Power Cobbe (2010). “The Duties of Women: A Course of Lectures”, p.158, Cambridge University Press

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

  Alfred Doblin

  Writing, Matter, Teeth

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• When we control business in the public interest we are also bound to encourage it in the public interest or it will be a bad thing for everybody and worst of all for those on whose behalf the control is nominally exercised.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Business, Worst, Interest

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• A free society depends upon a high degree of mutual trust. The public will not give that trust to officials who are not seen to be impartially dedicated to the general public interest, nor will they give trust to those high in government who violate the rule of law they ask citizens to obey at the expense of self-interest, or to those who present government as the place where one feathers his own nest, [or] exchanges favors with friends and former associates.

  Archibald Cox

  Government, Self, Law

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• 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

  Selfish, Men, Failing

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• Democracy entails a correlation between the public interest as expressed by a majority of the population and the governmental policies that affect them. The term encompasses various manifestations, including direct, participatory and representative democracy, but Governments must be responsive to people and not to special interests such as the military-industrial complex, financial bankers and transnational corporations. Democracy is inclusive and does not privilege an anthropological aristocracy.

  Alfred-Maurice de Zayas

  Military, Government, People

  "Report of the Independent Expert on the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order". United Nations General Assembly Human Rights Council, Session 24, July 01, 2013.

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

  Solon

  Fame, Interest, Sells

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• corporate America corrupted the watchdogs that were supposed to be guarding the public interest by feeding them under the table.

  Arianna Huffington

  Business, America, Government

  Arianna Huffington (2009). “Pigs at the Trough: How Corporate Greed and Political Corruption Are Undermining America”, p.3, Crown

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• What is supposed to happen in a democracy is that each sovereign citizen will always vote in the public interest for the safety and welfare of all. But what does happen is that he votes his own self-interest as he sees it... which for the majority translates as 'Bread and Circuses'.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Self, Safety, Democracy

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• One answer to why public interest in men's tennis has been on the wane in recent years is an essential and unpretty thugishness about the power-baseline style that's become dominant on the tour. Watch Agassi closely sometime...he's amazingly absent of finesse, with movements that look more like a heavy-metal musician's than an athlete's...what a top PBer really resembles is film of the old Soviet Union putting down a rebellion. It's awesome, but brutally so, with a grinding, faceless quality about its power that renders that power curiously dull and empty.

  David Foster Wallace

  Sports, Athlete, Men

  "The String Theory" by David Foster Wallace, www.esquire.com. September 17, 2008.

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• On two subjects the overwhelming majority of people regarded their own opinions as Absolute Truth, and sincerely believed that anyone who disagreed with them was immoral, outrageous, sinful, sacrilegious, offensive, intolerable, stupid, illogical, treasonable, actionable, against the public interest, ridiculous, and obscene. The two subjects were (of course) sex and religion.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Sex, Stupid, Two

  Robert A. Heinlein (1988). “To Sail Beyond the Sunset”

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• 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.

  Mark Mason

  Mean, Land, Important

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• 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.

  Steve King

  Heart, Thinking, Isis

  Source: www.msnbc.com

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• 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.

  Stephen Hawking

  War, Thinking, Race

  "Stephen Hawking Urges Human Colonization of Other Planets". www.foxnews.com. June 13, 2006.

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• There's no doubt that in the last two to three decades, American democracy has been hacked. It was based on the regular harvesting of the wisdom of crowds, but now big sources of special interest money are able to prevent the passage of almost any meaningful reform that's aimed at the public interest.

  Al Gore

  Meaningful, Democracies Have, Two

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• A corporation has no rights except those given it by law. It can exercise no power except that conferred upon it by the people through legislation, and the people should be as free to withhold as to give, public interest and not private advantage being the end in view.

  William Jennings Bryan

  Exercise, Views, Law

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• 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."

  Evgeny Morozov

  Vocabulary, Accountability, Innovation

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• I'm not trying to top anything. I'm trying to be useful, to play a positive role, to serve the public interest.

  Al Gore

  Play, Trying, Roles

  Interview with John McMurtrie, www.sfgate.com. February 17, 2013.

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• 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.

  Marco Pirroni

  Witty, Clever, Past

  Source: www.denofgeek.com

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• 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.

  Robert L. Payton

  Independent, Unique, Organization

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• Philanthropic leaders genially speak of complementing government, not competing with it as if monopoly were good and competition destructive-thus unwittingly conspiring against the public interest.

  Richard Cornuelle

  Government, Leader, Competition

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• 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.

  William Rehnquist

  Heart, Expression, Ideas

  "Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46". The U.S. Supreme Court case, www.law.cornell.edu. February 24, 1988.

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• Politicians pay more attention to interest groups than to the public interest.

  Alice Rivlin

  Groups, Attention, Pay

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• I recognize that there's an appetite that I'm now serving, and I'm happy to do so. I think it means quite a bit that science has achieved this level of public interest and access. And so I'm simultaneously astonished every day upon recognizing this, and I think it's a good sign for the country and possibly for the world.

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  Country, Mean, Thinking

  Source: www.chicagotribune.com

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