Public Action Quotes

The highest proof of civility is that the whole public action of the State is directed on securing the greatest good of the greatest number.

The people have the power. All we have to do is awaken the power in the people.

When the three branches of government have failed to represent the citizenry and the mass of the media has failed to represent the citizenry, then the citizenry better represent the citizenry.

Wilberforce and the band of abolitionists knew that a private faith that did not act in the face of oppression was no faith at all.

As an activist, you do find yourself directed more toward public action. But I've always tried to use stories from my own life in my writing. It has always been clear to me that the stories of each other's lives are our best textbooks.

The people will save their government, if the government itself will allow them.

What, after all, is the public under present conditions? What are the reasons for its eclipse? What hinders it from finding and identifying itself? By what means shall its inchoate and amorphous estate be organized into effective political action relevant to present social needs and opportunities? What has happened to the public in the century and a half since the theory of political democracy was urged with such assurance and hope?

Without public pressure from caring people, our lawsuits will not be enough to stop this widespread abuse.

As in the days of Edward I, the citizenry may be called upon to enforce the justice of the state, not faintly and with lagging steps but honestly and bravely and with whatever implements and facilities are convenient and at hand.

More and more I think of privatisation as being not just about the takeover of resources and power by corporate interests, but as the retreat of citizens to private life and private space, screened from solidarity with strangers and increasingly afraid or even unable to imagine acting in public.

If there is a mystical chord in democracy, it probably revolves around the notion that unexpected music can resonate from politics when people are pursuing questions larger than self... I have seen that ennobling effect in people many, many times- expressed by those who found themselves engaged in genuine acts of democratic expression, who claimed their right to define the larger destiny of their community, their nations.

To sound the alarm is not to panic but to seek action from an aroused public.

I am calling upon all of you to come out and fight corruption and agree to support the government in fighting corruption as our first priority.

The Sixties are most generously described as a time when people took part - when they stepped out of themselves and acted in public, as people who didn't know what would happen next, but who were sure that acts of true risk and fear would produce something different from what they had been raised to take for granted.

Public action should seek to expand the set of opportunities of those who have the least voice and fewest resources and capabilities.

We often ask our citizens to split their public and private selves, telling them in effect that it is fine to be religious in private, but there is something askew when those private beliefs become the basis for public action.

Journalism still, in a democracy, is the essential force to get the public educated and mobilized to take action on behalf of our ancient ideals.

I think corporations should give more attention to this suffering and should wait to invest until there is a responsible government in Burma. I do not think it is a good idea to separate economics from politics; in fact, I do not think economics can be separated from politics It's quite understandable that many business concerns think only about their own profits It's up to the public to put as much pressure as it can on these companies, through shareholder resolutions and public actions.

… the highest proof of civility is, that the whole public action of the State is directed on securing the greatest good of the greatest number. Our Southern States have introduced confusion into the moral sentiments of their people, by reversing this rule in theory and practice, and denying a man's right to his labor.

No great deed, private or public, has ever been undertaken in a bliss of certainty.

The people are doing everything they can to stop Democrats! The problem is, the media is running the opposition, not the Democrats. You want to stop this? Stop the media. How do you stop the media? Turn 'em off, don't believe 'em, don't let 'em affect what you think and do. Beyond that, get creative.

The first rule of good theatre is 'Show, don't tell.' It applies to good political action as well.

Whenever you do anything public, you open yourself up to be criticized.