State Duties Quotes

Men in great places are thrice servants: servants of the sovereign or state, servants of fame, and servants of business.

I'm not a princess. My mother is, not I. I am the niece of a head of state. And with this status, I have some representational duties - nothing very constraining or very exceptional.

Over 5,000 years, states have made surprisingly consistent claims about their duties. They have promised to protect people from threats; promote their welfare; deliver justice and also, perhaps less obviously, uphold truth - originally truths about the cosmos, and more recently truths drawn from reason and knowledge.

First ladies, you know, we look at Michelle Obama, and we look at most first ladies, and they seem like they have it all. You know, they live in the White House, they go to state dinners, they ride on Air Force One, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. But first ladies do often feel that they are given short shrift or forgotten or left at the margins.

Precisely because the State has the monopoly of coercion it can be allowed the monopoly only of coercion. Only if the modern State can be held within a strictly limited agency of duties and powers can it be prevented from regimenting, conquering, and ultimately devouring the society which gave it birth.

I think the hardest part [is] the priorities. There are an awful lot of things to do [being Secretary of State].

Every state has an undoubted right to determine the status, or domestic and social condition, of the persons domiciled within its territory except insofar as the powers of the states in this respect are restrained, or duties and obligations imposed upon them, by the Constitution of the United States.

The modern state no longer has anything but rights; it does not recognize duties any more.

Oregon deserves a Governor who is fully focused on the duties of state.

The duties which a police officer owes to the state are of a most exacting nature. No one is compelled to choose the profession ofa police officer, but having chosen it, everyone is obliged to live up to the standard of its requirements. To join in that high enterprise means the surrender of much individual freedom.

The task of the government is not only to pour honey into a cup, but sometimes to give bitter medicine.

The privilege and pleasure That we treasure beyond measure Is to run on little errands for the Ministers of State.