David Cross Quotes

America thrived in the 20th century because we made high school free. We sent a generation to college. We cultivated the most educated workforce in the world.

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.

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

We must stop thinking of the individual and start thinking about what is best for society.

Serve a cause greater than your self interest.

on the ground of both humanity and self-interest…. [There will be] a benefit done to our people by giving them something to think of which isn’t material 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.

There are only individual people, different individual people, with their own individual lives. Using one of these people for the benefit of others uses him and benefits the others. Nothing more. What happens is that something is done to him for the sake of others. Talk of an overall social good covers this up.

Democracy is based upon empathy and the recognition that some decisions are solely for the community's benefit without regard to one's own narrow self-interest.

The public school education system has done so much for me that it would be wrong not give anything back.

Service that benefits the community and those in need is an act that betters us all.

Benefit to the community precedes benefit to the individual.

The nation needs men who think in terms of service to their country and not in terms of their country's debt to them.

True patriots measure themselves not by personal wealth or power but by the degree to which they contribute to the community.

Under our system every voter and officeholder is a man who has demonstrated through voluntary and difficult service that he places the welfare of the group ahead of personal advantage.

About one month before he was killed, when asked by David Frost how his obituary should read: Something about the fact that I made some contribution to either my country, or those who were less well off. I think back to what Camus wrote about the fact that perhaps this world is a world in which children suffer, but we can lessen the number of suffering children, and if you do not do this, then who will do this? I'd like to feel that I'd done something to lessen that suffering.

Equip yourself for life, not solely for your own benefit, but for the benefit of the whole community

Can someone tell me, whatever we are doing, have we asked ourselves if our work has helped the poor or come to benefit the nation in any way? We should come out of the 'Why should I care' attitude and dedicate ourselves to the nation's progress.

I never think about my own stats, as long as I'm contributing to the team.

If America is the pursuit of happiness, the best way to pursue happiness is to help other people.

I think a lot of the way I live my life is not just for me, which has sometimes been a burden. A lot of the choices I make are in order to make them [my parents] proud.

The gifted man bears his gifts into the world, not for his own benefit, but for the people among whom he is placed; for the gifts are not his, he himself is a gift to the community.

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