Public Affairs Quotes

“We are concerned in public affairs, but immersed in our private ones.”
― Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion

“Power creates temptations, and that is true even for the smallest increments of power: the power of the building inspector, of the customs official, of the cop at the traffic stop. It took a lot of work by a lot of people over a long time to build even America's highly imperfect standards of public integrity. Undoing that work would be a far easier task. Corruption is the resting state of pubic affairs; integrity a painstaking, unceasing struggle against cultural inertia and political gravity.”
― David Frum, Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic

“[...] I cannot in any degree approve of those restless and busy meddlers who, called neither by birth nor fortune to take part in the management of public affairs, are yet always projecting reforms; and if I thought that this [treatise] contained [anything] which might justify the suspicion that I was a victim of such folly, I would by no means permit its publication.”
― René Descartes, Discourse on Method

“A good citizen must follow the movement of public affairs, so as to cast his vote intelligently, and know whether the party in power deserved his vote.”
― George Santayana, The Last Puritan: A Memoir in the Form of a Novel

“If people know the vaccines which are available, and understand their benefits and risks, they will come of their own volition and take the vaccines themselves or request them for their children. There should be no compulsion by the state to force vaccinations of any kind. If these vaccines are worthy of merit and consideration, and the people are given enough information concerning their risks and benefits, then the people will seek them out of their own accord and be able to decide whether or not the vaccinations are right for themselves and their families...

...The people of the United States are intelligent people. Provide the information and allow them to decide. Vaccination should always be a choice, and never a mandate.”
― stephen heartland, Louis Pasteur Condemns Big Pharma: Vaccines, Drugs, and Healthcare in the United States