A Quote by Ambrose Bierce

Nominee. A modest gentleman shrinking from the distinction of private life and diligently seeking the honorable obscurity of public office.

Ambrose Bierce

Quote Topics

Distinction Gentleman Honorable Life Modest Nominee Obscurity Office Private Private Life Public Public Office Seeking Shrinking

Quote Author

Ambrose Bierce
American - Journalist
June 24, 1842 - 1914

I am for a clear distinction between public and private life. I believe private matters should be regulated in private and I have asked those close to me to respect this.

Francois Hollande

The distinction between private and public undermines the unity of spiritual strength, draining the public of the transcendent energies while trivializing them because the merely private life provides no proper stage for their action.

Allan Bloom

Now we live in a time where the public and the private are completely fused and there isn't such a great distinction. We know our private lives are constantly made public. With Facebook and Twitter there isn't such a desire, it feels, to keep things private.

Felicity Jones

Honorable, adj.: Afflicted with an impediment in one's reach. In legislative bodies, it is customary to mention all members as honorable; as, "the honorable gentleman is a scurvy cur.".

Ambrose Bierce

I'm not sure [Donald] Trump has had that distinction between private and public life in his head. And so, I think there's likely to be an erosion of just that standard, that different standard, consciousness, and I think it's likely we'll see what we haven't seen in the last eight years and even the last 12 or 16 of private enrichment in office and scandals where people have to resign and things like that, because just once the standards go, behavior tends to go.

David Brooks

Confidence and courage are special skills to the art ... Within the four walls of his study, the artist should be modest, work diligently and conscientiously. While for the public, he'll show himself audacious, yes even into cheerful boldness. And so a new public's darling has arisen.

Robert Schumann

In the end, it is because the media are driven by the power and wealth of private individuals that they turn private lives into public spectacles. If every private life is now potentially public property, it is because private property has undermined public responsibility.

Terry Eagleton

Corruption is when people in public office use that public office for private or selfish ends. This is one of the most central debates in the last 40 years in law, what is corruption.

Zephyr Teachout

I am a public person and I have my private life. It's important for me that my private life stay private, that what I share with the people is my public personality.

Georges St-Pierre

No man should be in public office who can't make more money in private life.

Thomas Dewey

I never make a distinction between private life and politics - that's a petit bourgeois thing. How can you make a stand against Nazi Germany, or in Rwanda, when you live life by making that distinction?

Marcel Ophuls

My ambition for station was always easily controlled. If the place came to me it was welcome. But it never seemed to me worth seeking at the cost of self-respect, or independence. My family were not historic; they were well-to-do, did not hold or seek office. It was easy for me to be contented in private life. An honor was no honor to me, if obtained by my own seeking.

Rutherford B. Hayes

What I will no longer accept is the mediocre life of a modest little gentleman.

Joan Miro

Anybody who runs for public office today has got to know his life or her life will be an open book. I've decided that if you want to run for public office you have to decide at the age of 5 and live accordingly.