Joseph Tussman Quotes

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.

Politicians fascinate because they constitute such a paradox; they are an elite that accomplishes mediocrity for the public good.

If they think its such a sacrifice to go into public service, then they should stay the heck out.

Concern for individual well-being is for private citizens .... Princes, who enjoy public possessions, should be concerned with public good.

Liberty was realized when the citizens were ... willing to sacrifice their private interests for the sake of the community

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

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.

Let's just do what is right for the American people. And those of us who are involved in politics and government know that our responsibility is to the American people, that we have a responsibility to find our common ground, to seek it and to find it.

Public service used to be the highest of callings, until people like Madame Voldemort vilified it.

Politics is a noble activity. We should revalue it, practise it with vocation and a dedication that requires testimony, martyrdom, that is to die for the common good.

Politics isn't just a game of clashing parties and competing interests. The right reason is to challenge the status quo, to serve the common good, and to leave this nation better than we found it.

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?

If you accept the privilege of public service, you had better understand the responsibilities of public service.

No personal consideration should stand in the way of performing a public duty.

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

When people fought for a democratic life, they were insisting that the common man had the capacity to engage in deliberation about how the community ought to run its life, not that you could let him squeak for what he wanted. And that ideal was that you could educate the common man to develop a certain amount of wisdom and that he could marshal the objectivity to deliberate and decide about what the public would require without always thinking that the political action was an opportunity to further his private interests…

A good subject makes it his rule to prefer the public welfare to everything else, bravely to sacrifice his fortune, and his private interests, and even his life, for the preservation of the state; and to employ all his abilities and his industry to advance the honor, and to procure the advantage of his native country.

Every kind of service necessary to the public good becomes honorable by becoming necessary.

The instinct to command others, in its primitive essence, is a carnivorous, altogether bestial and savage instinct. Under the influence of the mental development of man, it takes on a somewhat more ideal form and becomes somewhat ennobled, presenting itself as the instrument of reason and the devoted servant of that abstraction, or political fiction, which is called the public good

Private interests must be made subservient to the general interests of the community

It is time that we labored for the happiness of the people. Legislators who are to bring light and order into the world must pursue their course with inexorable tread, fearless and unswerving as the sun.

I'm bothered when people don't understand that they have an obligation to use their best measure of devotion, of resources, to sacrifice for the common good.

For me, public service is an honor, and I have the ultimate respect for the rule of law.

I have always been very open about my respect for public service.

Men must be ready, they must pride themselves and be happy to sacrifice their private pleasures, passions and interests, nay, their private friendships and dearest connections, when they stand in competition with the rights of society.