Public Official, Public Servant Quotes

If my church attempted to influence me in a way which was improper or which affected adversely my responsibilities as a public servant sworn to uphold the Constitution, then I would reply to them that this was an improper action on their part. It was one to which I could not subscribe.

I would rather have honesty and character than prestige and wealth. I can walk and ride the streets of this city, hold my head up, and look all men in the face.

Politics is such a torment that I would advise everyone I love not to mix with it.

… my kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's country, not to its institutions or its office-holders. The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous.

Let public service be a proud and lively career. And let every man and woman who works in any area of our national government, in any branch, at any level, be able to say with pride and with honor in future years: I served the United States Government in that hour of our nation's need.

In politics stupidity is not a handicap.

All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out.

When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property.

He who is unfit to serve his fellow citizens wants to rule them.

Public business … must always be done by somebody…. If wise men decline it, others will not; if honest men refuse it, others will not.

PUBLIC SERVANT: Persons chosen by the people to distribute the graft.

A good king is a public servant.

Service to others is the rent you pay for space on earth.

It takes two to corrupt – the corrupted and the corrupter.

Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.

Occupants of public offices love power and are prone to abuse it.

With bad laws and good civil servants it's still possible to govern. But with bad civil servants even the best laws can't help.

In my experience, only third-rate intelligence is sent to Legislatures to make laws, because the first-rate article will not leave important private interests go unwatched to go and serve the public for a beggarly four or five dollars a day, and a miserably trivial distinction

I am a career physician. I practiced for 32 years before I began my career as a public servant.

An untruth must be spoken, where need requires. For whether men lie, or say true, it is with one and the same object. Men lie, because they think to gain by deceiving others; and speak the truth, because they expect to get something by their true speaking, and to be trusted afterwards in more important matters. Thus, though their conduct is so opposite, the end of both is alike. If there were no gain to be got, your true-speaking man would tell untruths as much as your liar, and your liar would tell the truth as much as your true-speaking man.

The great happiness in life is not to donate but to serve.

My job is discouraging in the extreme—it often tempts me to quit the helm in despair.

I consulted the President [Jefferson Davis] whether it was best for the country that I should submit to unmerited censure or reveal to a Congressional Committee our poverty and my utter inability to supply the requisitions of General Wise, and thus run the risk that the fact should become known to some of the spies of the enemy, of whose activity we were well-assured. It was thought best for the public service that I should suffer the blame in silence and a report of censure on me was accordingly made by the Committee of Congress.

To safeguard the people's money what we call red tape is tied around all government activity until the really efficient honest public servant has a somewhat difficult time, but we are still laboring under the theory that the majority of the world is dishonest.

Members associated with some of the Posse groups [Posse Comitatus] wear tiny gold hangmen's nooses on their lapels.