John Henrik Clarke Quotes

Private choices are not private; they all have public consequences...Our society is the sum total of what millions of individuals do in their private lives. That sum total of private behavior has worldwide public consequences of enormous magnitude. There are no completely private choices.

I'd like to say that people... people can change anything they want to; and that means everything in the world. Show me any country and there'll be people in it. And it's the people that make the country. People have got to stop pretending they're not on the world... It's time to take that humanity back into the center of the ring and follow that for a time... Think on that. Without people you're nothing.

The social sciences are usually concerned with groups of persons rather than individual persons. The behavior of individuals, being free, is unpredictable.

Much can and must be done by governments, but they cannot of themselves change lives.

There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.

Companies, to date, have often used the excuse that they are only beholden to their shareholders, but we need shareholders to think of themselves as stakeholders in the well being of society as well.

Long-term career aspirations encompass emotional and intellectual impact of work on society.

As states we act, in general, and in most cases, exactly like the individuals of whom our society is composed.

Some men are born for the public. Nature by fitting them for the service on a broad scale, has stamped them with the evidence of her destination and their duty.

The unit of effectiveness of education is not the individual but the group. An individual's moral values are primarily important for society as they contribute to a moral social climate, not as they induce particular pieces of behavior.

Our philosophy at 8VC is that many of the companies that present the greatest economic opportunities also create the greatest value for society.

On the path to ubiquity of AI, there will be many ethics-related decisions that we, as AI leaders, need to make. We have a responsibility to drive those decisions, not only because it is the right thing to do for society but because it is the smart business decision.

Today's investors want to see a positive impact on society and the environment as well as solid financial returns.

In all communities you find groups that behave badly. But you must understand them too.

I guess I'm interested in people and society and what we do collectively in the realm of decisions that shape our world. You know, at least on a human level.

Corporations are economic entities, to be sure, but they are also social institutions that must justify their existence by their overall contribution to society.

We need government and business to work together for the benefit of everyone. It should no longer be just about typical "corporate social responsibility" where the "responsibility" bit is usually the realm of a small team buried in a basement office - now it should be about every single person in a business taking responsibility to make a difference in everything they do, at work and in their personal lives.

It is more important to find out what you are giving to society than to ask what is the right means of livelihood.

There is no such thing as a "self-made" man. We are made up of thousands of others. Everyone who has ever done a kind deed for us, or spoken one word of encouragement to us, has entered into the make-up of our character and of our thoughts, as well as our success.

In a real sense all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be... This is the inter-related structure of reality.

By each crime and every kindness, we birth our future.

Trade is a social act. Whoever undertakes to sell any description of any goods to the public, does what affects the interest of other persons, and of society in general; and thus his conduct, in principal, comes within the jurisdiction of society.

Since no man ever can, or could, live by himself and for himself alone, the destinies of thousands of other people were bound to be affected, some remotely, but some very directly and near-at-hand, by my own choices and decisions and desires, as my own life would also be formed and modified according to theirs.

Thus it amounts to the same thing whether one gets drunk alone or is a leader of nations.