Henry George Quotes

Hell hath no fury like a vested interest masquerading as a moral principle.

The special interest is the other buy’s interest and general interest is your own.

Beware of all men who would turn the tasks and the necessities of the nation to their own private profit or use them for the building up of private power.

They could care less about the public. The public comes in third. Number one is keeping their power. Number two are the special interests, the people footing the bill. Finally, the public good might be third — if they can profit from it. If there's no profit, they could care less.

When I see a man holding a fat office, sounding 'the horn on the borders' to call the people to support the man on whom he depends for his office. Well, thinks I, no wonder the man is zealous in the cause, he evidently has an axe to grind

The problem is, of course, that these interest groups are all asking for changes, but their enthusiasm for change rapidly disappears when it affects the core of their own interests.

Opinions have vested interests just as men have.

A friend in power is a friend lost.

Sadly we have government of the lobbyists, by the lobbyists, and for the lobbyists. That is no way to run the Senate.

Farmers who are legislators are the easiest to buy and seduce.

I have never seen such lobbying before as we have had in the last few weeks and such crookedness and complicity among members [of congress].

Everybody has an agenda.

It is out of nature that any man should think it good that his own order should be repressed, curtailed, and deprived of its power. If we go among cab-drivers or letter-carriers, among butlers or gamekeepers, among tailors or butchers, among farmers or grazers, among doctors or attorneys, we shall find in each set of men a conviction that the welfare of the community depends upon the firmness with which they, — especially they, — hold their own.

Never argue with a man whose job depends on his not being convinced.

Washington is rigged to favor people who have an army of lobbyists.

There are many who say in effect that public opinion has little to do with war, that it is explained by the influence of the vested interests who profit by it — armament makers or groups of capitalists. But even when we have admitted that those interests do exert great influence, it only pushes the question further back. Why are the mass of men, millions, powerless in this matter as against a tiny minority … who profit by the general disaster? There are undoubtedly some who say to the millions in effect: "We should like you to go to war because it would expand our profits." But why do the millions obey?

Special interests are interested in whatever's special to them.

When someone is trying to interpret something for you, they always have an agenda.

There are no generalizations in American politics that vested selfishness cannot cut through.

The truth is, for some absurd reason, no one is willing to admit that the interests of the producers and the theater owners are not the same.

It's when someone has an agenda of their own for the record that it doesn't work for me.

Capitalism inevitably and by virtue of the very logic of its civilization creates, educates and subsidizes a vested interest in social unrest.

As a reporter, I approach every situation knowing that everyone has his or her own agenda. It's not a bad thing; it's just a fact.

One handful of money is stronger than two handfuls of truth.

a self service interest group immeasurably aided be secrecy.