Newton N. Minow Quotes

No universal selfishness can bring social good to all.

Now we have to think, not in terms of what is good for an individual or a segment of the population or an organization or a sect of Christianity or Islam or Judaism, we have to think today of what is in the best interest of the whole of our people.

Since there is no such entity as 'the public,' since the public is merely a number of individuals, the idea that 'the public interest' supersedes private interests and rights can have but one meaning: that the interests and rights of some individuals take precedence over the interests and rights of others.

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.

Are the welfare and safety of the whole body politic anything else than the welfare and safety of all its individual members?

The supreme inspiration is the common weal.

Public interest is a very unruly horse.

In the back of my mind, always, is the firmly held belief that public policies must serve the long-term interests and well-being of the community at large.

Self-interest is hostile to the common good, but enlightened self-interest is not. And this is the best key to the meaning of enlightenment.

Benefit to the community precedes benefit to the individual.

The Self has turned out to mean so many things, to mean them so ambiguously, and to be so wavering in its application, that we do not feel encouraged.

To desire the common good and strive towards it is a requirement of justice and charity.

No right of preference exists in favor of person, property, or business. Personal claims and ambitions must yield in favor of whatever best serves the general welfare.

Many an individual has turned from the mean, personal, acquisitive point of view to one that sees society as a whole and works for its benefit. If there has been such a change in one person, there can be the same change in many.

Of Rhetoric various definitions have been given by different writers; who, however, seem not so much to have disagreed in their conceptions of the nature of the same thing, as to have had different things in view while they employed the same term.

I am a socialist. However, I have to add that what I understand by socialism is exactly the opposite of what many people, or most people, today mean by socialism.

To serve the public interest is not the same as being a servant of public opinion.

The principle of real leadership ignored, the immortal objects of society forgotten, practical conservatism degenerated into mere laudation of private enterprise, economic policy almost wholly surrendered to special interests.

When business starts using its voice for the benefit of the country as a whole, not just in its narrow self interest, it can really be the force that can make the changes that need to be made.

This is the rule of most perfect Christianity, its most exact definition, its highest point, namely, the seeking of the common good ... for nothing can so make a person an imitator of Christ as caring for neighbors.

How likely are definitions to be pleasurable.

The public good is promoted best by people pursuing their own private interests. This bothers some people because they're more concerned with motives than with results.

The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but can not do at all, or can not so well do, for themselves – in their separate, and individual capacities.

Hillary Clinton doesn't know anything about my policy. I mean, she wouldn't know anything about it.

What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all of its children.