Public Good Quotes

“Whistle-blowers often face significant personal risks to expose social misconduct. Their actions, grounded in a commitment to truth, justice, and the public good, are a testament to their selflessness. ("Alert. High noon.")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“Leadership is for those who love the public good and are endowed and trained to administer it.”
― Thornton Wilder, The Ides of March

“Do not suffer your good nature [...] to say yes when you ought to say no; remember that it is a public not a private cause that is to be injured or benefitted by your choice”
― George Washington

“The fantastical idea of virtue and the public good being a sufficient security to the state against the commission of crimes...was never mine. It is only the sanguinary hue of our penal laws which I meant to object to. Punishments I know are necessary, and I would provide them strict and inflexible, but proportioned to the crime. Death might be inflicted for murder and perhaps for treason, [but I] would take out of the description of treason all crimes which are not such in their nature. Rape, buggery, etc., punish by castration. All other crimes by working on high roads, rivers, gallies, etc., a certain time proportioned to the offence... Laws thus proportionate and mild should never be dispensed with. Let mercy be the character of the lawgiver, but let the judge be a mere machine. The mercies of the law will be dispensed equally and impartially to every description of men; those of the judge or of the executive power will be the eccentric impulses of whimsical, capricious designing man.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“The worst crimes against people were committed on a plausible pretext for the common good”
― Al Tupushev

“Above all, we will need more public goods and more positive externalities. Star Trek teaches us that humanity’s wondrous inventions do not fully realize their potential until they are freely shared.”
― Manu Saadia, Trekonomics: The Economics of Star Trek

“MySchool not OurSchools. In the basic logic of policy, there is now no difference between Labor and Liberal/National parties. The unchallenged assumption of national and state policy is that whatever problem exists, market logic can fix it.”
― Raewyn Connell

“Patent Good and Public Good merge more often than you can imagine.”
― Kalyan C. Kankanala, Road Humps and Sidewalks

“There are seemingly parallel origins of Nature’s God in America and China’s Mandate of Heaven. These twin concepts created socio-political forces for public good and orderly governance, and a unique cultural ethos (related to the Creator of the Universe in America and the Son of Heaven in China) is deeply rooted in both societies. Each concept is physically yet stealthily manifested in the architectural designs of the two capital cities, Beijing and Washington.”
― Patrick Mendis, Peaceful War: How the Chinese Dream and the American Destiny Create a New Pacific World Order

“If I light my candle at yours, am I getting fire for free, when otherwise I would have had to pay for matches? Does that make it a ‘commercial’ act?”
― James Boyle, The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind

“If we find that the seminal, genre-creating artworks of yesteryear would be illegal under the law and culture of today, we have to ask ourselves “is this really what we want?”
― James Boyle, The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind

“In the absence of evidence on either side, the presumption should be against creating a new, legalized monopoly. The burden of proof should lie on those who claim, in any particular case, that the state should step in to stop competition, outlaw copying, proscribe technology, or restrict speech.”
― James Boyle, The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind

“Call it the openness aversion. Cultural agoraphobia. We are systematically likely to undervalue the importance, viability, and productive power of open systems, open networks, and nonproprietary production.”
― James Boyle, The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind

“In the middle of the most successful and exciting experiment in nonproprietary, distributed creativity in the history of the species, our policy makers can see only the threat from ‘piracy’.”
― James Boyle, The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind

“Common arguments for culture at a global level, such as creativity, diversity, and heritage, fail to take into account the significance of culture as the means to facilitate commitment to international agreements. In this sense, culture ought to be considered a global public good alongside digital and information.”
― Marvin Cheung, 5 Ideas from Global Diplomacy: System-wide Transformation Methods to Close the Compliance Gap and Advance the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals

“What kind of billionaire ever did anything for the public good?”
― Emma Sloley, The Island of Last Things

“Libraries are models of gift economies, providing free access not only to books but also music, tools, seeds, and more. We don't each have to own everything. The books at the library belong to everyone, serving the public with free books. Take the books, enjoy them, bring them back so someone else can enjoy them, with literary abundance for all. And all you need is a library card, which is a kind of agreement to respect and take care of the common good.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World