Susan George Quotes

The public interest is more than the sum total of the interest groups.

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

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.

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.

Every man is to be considered in two capacities, the private and public; as designed to pursue his own interest, and likewise to contribute to the good 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.

Look around, and you see everywhere the exertions and acts of individuals restricted, regulated, or promoted, on the principle of the common welfare.

Everyone thinks chiefly of his own, hardly ever of the public interest.

The only public good is that which assures the private good of the citizens.

We need government to do for the people what they cannot do for themselves.

The supreme inspiration is the common weal.

That’s the function of government—to do for people what they cannot do for themselves.

We have to be guided by the interest of society and the development of the state.

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.

It's time to put back on the agenda the importance of public ownership and public good, the value of working together collaboratively, not in competition.

Defining of the public interest is always very, very difficult.

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.

Some things are too important to be left to the private sector.

The happiness of society is the end of government.

No decisions should ever be made without asking the question, is this for the common good?

A liberty subject to law and subordinate to the common welfare.

Government is instituted for the common good, for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people and not for the profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men.

The right to private property is inconceivable without responsibilities to the common good.

We need property dedicated to the general benefit in addition to that intended for private use.

The legitimate object of government is "to do for the people what needs to be done, but which they cannot, by individual effort, do at all, or do so well, for themselves.