Joseph Butler Quotes

Everyone thinks chiefly of his own, hardly ever of the public interest.

Private passions tire and exhaust themselves, public ones never.

What it missing, I think, is this notion of the common good.

To be interested in the public good we must be disinterested, that is, not interested in goods in which our personal selves are wrapped up.

Upon the principles of reason, the good of many is preferable to the good of a few or of one; a lasting good is to be preferred before a temporary, the public before the private.

I try to persuade people to act in ways that are not only in their own interest, but in the interest of society at large.

Men in their private capacities may be allowed to prefer their single profit, but should consult only the general good in public councils.

We need leaders who appeal to us to think about something other than narrow self-interest but instead focus upon the greater good.

Honor sets all the parts of the body politic in motion, and by its very action connects them; thus each individual advances the public good, while he only thinks of promoting his own interest.

Everyone living under the social contract we call democracy has a duty to act responsibly, to obey the laws, and to abandon certain types of self-interested behaviors that conflict with the general good.

My fundamental philosophy is that you owe it to society to transfer to them any knowledge you have that might be useful.

If I can't do something for the public good, what the hell am I doing?

I have always served the public to the best of my ability. Why? Because, like every other man, it is to my interest to do so.

Every society, all government, and every kind of civil compact therefore, is or ought to be, calculated for the general good and safety of the community.

I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.

So there's always been this clash between what is the public good - that which belongs to all of us in common - and what can be exploited for a private interest.

No decisions should ever be made without asking the question, is this for the common good?

My public life is before you; and I know you will believe me when I say, that when I sit down in solitude to the labours of my profession, the only questions I ask myself are, What is right? What is just? What is for the public good?

Liberals worry that what's best for the individual might not be better for the public at large. But that philosophy assumes something vicious about each and every one of us. It assumes we only care about ourselves.

Join cooperatively with one another, put aside self-interest, and take on service to the public …

We must take man as we find him, and if we expect him to serve the public we must interest his passions in doing so.

…mortals cannot cherish what is private without injury to the community…to the extent that we call anything our own it absorbs our affections and diverts them from the service of the common good.

The supreme inspiration is the common weal.

It is the essence of responsibility to put the public good ahead of personal gain.

The only reward in a public life is public progress. You stand back and say, 'What did I get out of it?' You look around, and the place is better, and that's it.