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C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.

Public

The majority of a society is the true definition of the public.

Johnson.

The public is wiser than the wisest critic.

Bancroft.

The public have neither shame nor gratitude.

Hazlitt.

  • I wish the crowd to feel itself well treated,
  • Especially since it lives and lets me live.
  • Goethe.

    The public! the public! how many fools does it require to make the public?

    Chamfort.

    I am very anxious to please the public, particularly as it lives and lets live.

    Goethe.

    Self-interest, be it enlightened, works indirectly for the public good.

    Prescott.

    The public wishes itself to be managed like a woman; one must say nothing to it except what it likes to hear.

    Goethe.

    He who serves the public is a poor animal; he worries himself to death and no one thanks him for it.

    Goethe.

    An enlightened self-interest, which, when well understood, they tell us will identify with an interest more enlarged and public.

    Burke.

    All nations that grew great out of little or nothing did so merely by the public-mindedness of particular persons.

    South.

    A man, if he be active and energetic, can hardly fail also, be he never so selfish, of benefiting the general public interest.

    Benjamin F. Butler.

    That is, in a great degree, true of all men, which was said of the Athenians, that they were like sheep, of which a flock is more easily driven than a single one.

    Whately.

    A thousand wheels of labor are turned by dear affections, and kept in motion by self-sacrificing endurance; and the crowds that pour forth in the morning and return at night are daily processions of love and duty.

    Chapin.

    In a free and republican government, you cannot restrain the voice of the multitude. Every man will speak as he thinks, or, more properly, without thinking, and consequently will judge of effects without attending to their causes.

    Washington.