Mara Nelson Quotes

An individual, in promoting his own interest, may injure the public interest; a nation, in promoting the general welfare, may check the interest of a part of its members.

Liberals worry that what's best for the individual might not be better for the public at large. But that philosophy assumes something vicious about each and every one of us. It assumes we only care about ourselves.

As individual life has more and more given place to crowded community life, the rights and privileges once deemed essential to the perfect liberty of the individual are often found to stand in the way of the public welfare, and to breed wrong and injustice to the community at large.

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

I will ever prefer the weal of the public and of the whole commonwealth, in making of good laws and constitutions, to any particular and private ends of mine

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

The national interest is not simply the sum of our special interests and attachments.

That spirit of freedom, which at the commencement of this contest would have gladly sacrificed everything to the attainment of its object, has long since subsided, and every selfish passion has taken its place. It is not the public, but private interest, which influences the generality of mankind, nor can the Americans any longer boast an exception. Under these circumstances it would rather have been surprising if you had succeeded.

Men in their private capacities may be allowed to prefer their single profit, but should consult only the general good in public councils.

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

A coldly rationalist individualist can deny that he has any obligation to make sacrifices for the future.

For a solitary animal egoism is a virtue that tends to preserve and improve the species: in any kind of community it becomes a destructive vice.

No man ever freely surrendered a portion of his own liberty for the sake of the public good; such a chimera appears only in fiction. If it were possible, we would each prefer that the pacts binding others did not bind us; every man sees himself as the centre of all the world's affairs.

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

Every man holds his property subject to the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare may require it.

Citizenship in a diverse society means living with our deepest differences and committing ourselves to work for public policies that are in the best interest of all individuals, families, communities and our nation.

How few aim at the good of the whole, without aiming too much at the prosperity of the parts!

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

Pluralism has run wild. We have become so blinded by the notion that there is no national interest, only special interests, that we are incapable of pursuing policies designed to be of general benefit.

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

…mortals cannot cherish what is private without injury to the community…to the extent that we call anything our own it absorbs our affections and diverts them from the service of the common good.

… a good society ensues from the selfish pursuits of individual men.

There are certain public needs that outweigh private interests.

No public interest is anything other or nobler than a massed accumulation of private interests.

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.