Private Action Quotes

Censorship' is a term pertaining only to governmental action. No private action is censorship. No private individual or agency can silence a man or suppress a publication; only the government can do so. The freedom of speech of private individuals includes the right not to agree, not to listen and not to finance one's own antagonists.

Violence is not to be undertaken by private persons. If a state or administration acts without due and visible attention to agreed international process, it acts in a way analogous to a private person. It purports to be judge of its own interest.

I pick my nose quite a bit.

It is bad policy to regulate everything... where things may better regulate themselves and can be better promoted by private exertions; but it is no less bad policy to let those things alone which can only be promoted by interfering social power.

I don't sing in the shower.

I still like to walk around and take photographs, but it's hard to do that if a lot of people are looking at you.

There are times when every act, no matter how private and unconscious, becomes political.

I do not criticize people who take a public stand on human rights issues. I express my respect for them. But some people are more influential without a public confrontation.

The measure of action is the sentiment from which it proceeds. The greatest action may easily be one of the most private circumstance.