A Quote by Sidney Hook
To serve the public interest is not the same as being a servant of public opinion.
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I believe if a private citizen is able to affect public opinion in a constructive way he doesn't have to be an elected public servant to perform a public service.
I believe if a private citizen is able to affect public opinion in a constructive way, he doesn't have to be an elected public servant to perform a public service.
American public opinion, as you can see in the polls, radically changed from being against airstrikes to being heavily in favor that [President Obama] decided to do airstrikes. This is a classic example of leading from behind where he waits for public opinion. And now it's the public who's demanding he do something.
I think that the best profession or the best thing to do is to be a public servant... I mean there's nothing better than working for the people - working for the common people out there and being a servant, a public servant, and I have seen this.
Every man speaks of public opinion, and means by public opinion, public opinion minus his opinion.
If you are given a public responsibility, you have to listen, weigh up all the issues, but ultimately you have to form a view of what you genuinely think is in the public interest... put the public interest above the vested interest.
Fashion is not public opinion, or the result of embodiment of public opinion. It may be that public opinion will condemn the shape of a bonnet, as it may venture to do always, and with the certainty of being right nine times in ten: but fashion will place it upon the head of every woman in America; and, were it literally a crown of thorns, she would smile contentedly beneath the imposition.
Public interest criteria does not mean criteria that the public decides are in its interest. It means that the elite - via various appointed bodies - decide what the public's interest is for them.
I am not a perfect servant. I am a public servant doing my best against the odds. As I develop and serve, be patient. God is not finished with me yet.
If you make the choice to serve the public, public service, then serve the public, not yourself.
I think polling is important because it gives a voice to the people. It gives a quantitative, independent assessment of what the public feels as opposed to what experts or pundits think the public feels. So often it provides a quick corrective on what's thought to be the conventional wisdom about public opinion. There are any number of examples that I could give you about how wrong the experts are here in Washington, in New York and elsewhere about public opinion that are revealed by public opinion polls.
What do we mean by the public interest? Some say the public interest is merely what interests the public. I disagree.
I think polling is the best way of gauging public opinion - doing something that's independent, that's quantitative, that doesn't give just the loud voices about how things are going; or doesn't give so called experts the notion that they know what public opinion is. I think that's what makes public opinion polling pretty important. Qualitative assessments of public opinion; going out and talking to people and understanding the nuance to what's behind the numbers. I think it's awfully important as well.
A society - any society - is defined as a set of mutual benefits and duties embodied most visibly in public institutions: public schools, public libraries, public transportation, public hospitals, public parks, public museums, public recreation, public universities, and so on.
I realize that my opinion is my opinion, not everybody has to believe it and I never tried to shove anything down anyone's throat, but I was willing to take that to the trenches if you know what I mean. I took that opinion to the wall, often in public, often had to... I often had to fight in public with the very same people who I was trying to convince to play my records!
To attach full confidence to an institution of this nature, it appears to be an essential ingredient in its structure, that it shall be under private and not a public direction-under the guidance of individual interest, not of public policy; which, would be . . . liable to being too much influenced by public necessity.
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