Charles James Fox Quotes

Can one serve God and one's nation in parliament?

Some men are born for the public. Nature by fitting them for the service on a broad scale, has stamped them with the evidence of her destination and their duty.

Politics for me is not Ambition but a Mission.

Anyone who has taken the oath I have just taken must feel a heavy weight of responsibility. If not, he has no conception of the powers and duties of the office.

I think the important thing being a wife of a president is to know who you are and find a cause that corresponds to you. The truth is, it's hard to keep a job in that position. I kept playing music because no one could stop me from playing music at night.

Most of us think of government as them. Yet government isn't Them: It's us.

I learned more in those six months [ in the White House] than in the prior six years. I don't think that anybody who has had the privilege to serve the country at that level should walk out and behave like a crybaby. And I plan to continue to serve the country in other capacities.

Politics is for people who have a passion for changing life but lack a passion for living it.

Sometimes, when asked the what-do-you-do question, it occurs to me to say that I work for the government. I have a government job, essential to national security. I AM A CITIZEN. Like the Supreme Court judges, my job is for life, and the well-being of my country depends on me. It seems fair to think that I should be held accountable for my record in the same way I expect accountability from those who seek elected office. I would like to be able to say that I can stand on my record and am proud of it.

There is no lighter burden, nor more agreeable, than a pen. Other pleasures fail us or wound us while they charm, but the pen we take up rejoicing and lay down with satisfaction, for it has the power to advantage not only its lord and master, but many others as well, even though they be far away - sometimes, indeed, though they be not born for thousands of years to come.

I think you have to satisfy yourself first and foremost. There have been records I've been really, really pleased with that haven't connected with people. But I felt good about them. If you're making music, you must want to turn other people on to it, whether you're number one in the charts or number 60. I don't know, that's a commercial thing, but just the fact that other people like you... there's no point in making music, otherwise. Otherwise you might as well make it in your bedroom and leave it there.

I love working and I feel satisfied when I know I have literally given all the energy that I have. That being said, work is not my No. 1 priority. I don't think it can come at the expense of your family, your friends and your 'significant other' if you have one.

The whole duty of a writer is to please and satisfy himself, and the true writer always plays to an audience of one.

With this honor devolves upon you also a corresponding responsibility. As the country herein trusts you, so under God it will sustain you.

Nothing so strongly impels a man to regard the interest of his constituents, as the certainty of returning to the general mass of the people, from whence he was taken, where he must participate in their burdens.

There's tremendous pressure, if you're in that [goverment] system, to be involved and be interested and to care about it. There's no room to say, "This is stupid."

This is very rare for anyone in life to pursue something and that thing being the thing you actually most want to do. It's all about the inner, rather than the outer. Whether people like or don't like my work, read it or don't read it, it's just been a gift from the gods that I've been able to sit at my desk for the last almost 50 years and do the things I've wanted to do.

I still believe that term limits is the best way to ensure that the next generation, not the next election, is the central concern in our elected bodies.

Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask whether your country has been inhaling paint-thinner fumes.

No phase of life, whether public or private, can be free from duty.

Whatever you do, don’t wake up at 65 years old and think about what you should have done with your life.

It's a complex system we live in to think the actions that we take have consequences beyond the years in which we serve, and we all have an obligation to do what is best for our country.

I don't think there's ever a time where I step back and say I wish I was something different. I'm doing what I love to do.

Every post is honourable in which a man can serve his country.

Senator John McCain is unlike anybody else in not - not just in the Senate but in American politics. He's unlike anybody else in American life. In his public life and in his heroics in war. He's a singular figure in American life and American history. I think for everybody who has ever had a political difference with him that just instantly evaporates in the face of wanting the best for him because of cancer.