Public Service Quotes

Public service must be more than doing a job efficiently and honestly. It must be a complete dedication to the people and to the nation.
- Margaret Chase Smith

I have the consolation of having added nothing to my private fortune during my public service, and of retiring with hands clean as they are empty.
- Thomas Jefferson

In a city that is barely getting by with its small budget, something like illegal immigration can be the difference from being able to provide the level of public service that people expect.
- Lou Barletta

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.
- Warren Beatty

I don't want to run for governor, but I don't think anyone should put public service out of the question because that's not what a good citizen does.
- Warren Beatty

Once again, we see the Bush administration paying for its failed policies by cutting funds to vital public services and jeopardizing more American jobs.
- Corrine Brown

I've got to restructure all my personal life now in order to accommodate public service, which is fine.
- Max Burns

I just don't believe in the basic concept that someone should make their whole career in public service.
- Dan Quayle

I've been so blessed to be part of a family that has dedicated its life to public service.
- Jeb Bush

I urge the enactment of a civil service law so explicit and so strong that no partisan official will dare evade it, basing all rewards, promotions and salaries solely on merit, on loyalty and industry in the public service.
- Arthur Capper

The recipe for success is a tried and true one here in Rhode Island - innovation, reform, public service.
- Donald L Carcieri

You can not divorce religious belief and public service. I've never detected any conflict between God's will and my political duty. If you violate one, you violate the other.
- Jimmy Carter

You can't divorce religious belief and public service I've never detected any conflict between God's will and my political duty. If you violate one, you violate the other.
- Jimmy Carter

My grandmother didn't live to see us begin our lives in public service. But she probably would have thought it extraordinary that just two generations after she arrived in San Antonio, one grandson would be the mayor and the other would be on his way - the good people of San Antonio willing- to the United States Congress.
- Julian Castro

Help others and give something back. I guarantee you will discover that while public service improves the lives and the world around you, its greatest reward is the enrichment and new meaning it will bring your own life.
- Arnold Schwarzenegger

I didn't leave bodybuilding until I felt that I had gone as far as I could go. It will be the same with my film career. When I feel the time is right, I will then consider public service. I feel that the highest honor comes from serving people and your country.
- Arnold Schwarzenegger

It is right that the influence of the Government should be known in every humble home as the guardian of frugal comfort and content, and a defense against unjust exactions, and the unearned tribute persistently coveted by the selfish and designing. It is right that efficiency and honesty in public service should not be sacrificed to partisan greed; and it is right that the suffrage of our people should be pure and free.
- Grover Cleveland

I feel like I have had the most amazing life in my public service.
- Hillary Clinton

The candidates we have in this campaign are... the most accomplished, in terms of public service, that we've had since 1960. One of them will be successful.
- Hillary Clinton

Taking the time to read to children is not only a worthwhile investment but also a wonderful experience. I have visited 119 schools in Maine, and these visits are among the most rewarding experiences in my career in public service.
- Susan Collins

I believe we need to attract a new generation of the best and brightest to public service and I believe that government can be a source of inspiration, not degradation.
- Andrew Cuomo

I want the BBC to be a mass market public service broadcaster still funded by the licence fee... and the licence fee is more durable than many people in the commercial sector believe.
- Gavyn Davies

As a matter of fact, even when I finished law school, I had no notion of public service then.
- David Dinkins

I am enormously honored to be one of the spokesmen of the New Age Womens Health Campaign, so you'll be seeing me in public service announcements and public appearances supporting the campaign.
- Karen Duffy

Conscious of our many problems, I seek today to lay a foundation to our public policy. My fundamental purpose is to devote my term of office to raising the standard of public service in New Jersey.
- Charles Edison

It's appropriate to celebrate public service, and the thoughtful people who choose to serve. They symbolize what is good and decent about this historic citizen legislature, and we thank them.
- Robert L Ehrlich

I will use big words from time to time, the meanings of which I may only vaguely perceive, in hopes such cupidity will send you scampering to your dictionary: I will call such behavior 'public service'.
- Harlan Ellison

We had prepared, my staff had prepared for me a whole dossier on virtually - on George Bush on his votes on his records, what he had done over the past number of years in public service.
- Geraldine Ferraro

Public service used to be the highest of callings, until people like Madame Voldemort vilified it.
- Jennifer M Granholm

Because the majority of my readers are women, I feel that one public service I can provide to them is to spread the message of regular mammograms and early detection within the strip.
- Cathy Guisewite

I can assure you, public service is a stimulating, proud and lively enterprise. It is not just a way of life, it is a way to live fully.
- Lee H Hamilton

What drives people to public service is a sense of possibility. If you haven't sensed that possibility you don't get started in the same way, you don't feel you can have an impact.
- Henry Hampton

One of the best lessons I learned early is that not everything in life is about you. It is about service. If you want trips and excessive gifts, then don't get into public service.
- Sean Hannity

My grandmother had great influence on me. She was secretary of state in the 1970's, and that's when I was born. She showed me the importance of public service, and she was admired by people regardless of their political party.
- Stephanie Herseth

I'm truly worried about the country's direction. I can tell you this categorically, we've got the weakest president and the weakest governor in the history of my 50 years of public service.
- Fritz Hollings

The Civil Service is a vital economic asset to the UK - firstly, in the way it creates a framework for excellence in service delivery and secondly, in how it helps organise the best way to deliver modern public services on which both businesses and individuals depend.
- John Hutton

My view is that targets, properly constructed and applied across public services have been fundamental to past successes and will be an essential part of sustaining progress into the future.
- John Hutton

Greater personal choice, individually tailored services, stronger local accountability, greater efficiency - these are all central to the new direction of travel we have set for our public services.
- John Hutton

Whatever you may think of Mrs. Clinton as a character, I think she believes quite strongly in public service.
- Peter Jennings

I want to be a politician because I like the idea of public service. Come on, who wouldn't want all the people at their service? I'd get to live like a king, only I'd be voted in by my servants, rather than by God. And by God life would be good.
- Jarod Kintz

I do believe we have to understand why reality turned out to be different than expectations and estimates. But you have more public service - certainly many of you - than I have ever had, and you recognize that this is not unusual.
- David Kay

In my public service, I treasure my friendship with law enforcement officers. I admire what they do and support them in every aspect of their job. I have always looked upon law enforcement officers as my friends.
- Dirk Kempthorne

My decision to look seriously at elected office is grounded in a deep commitment to public service and my experience - both my own and that of my family - in finding just, practical, and bipartisan solutions to difficult challenges.
- Joseph P Kennedy Iii

I'm extremely proud of my family's record of public service to Massachusetts and the nation.
- Joseph P Kennedy Iii

Many people still regard many users of public services as undeserving.
- Elaine Macdonald

Which is supposed to mean they're doing something in their broadcasting they would not do is they were simply out to maximize profit; if they were really public service institutions, not purely profit maximizing institutions.
- Robert Mcchesney

I have had a career in public service.
- Scott Mcclellan

I was raised on the values of speaking up and making a positive difference in a very political family that believed in the importance of public service.
- Scott Mcclellan

The fact is that I've always been interested in politics and public service. I enjoy it and I think it's important and I believe in it. And I've been fortunate to be here when the opportunity has presented itself.
- Pat Meehan

I didn't get into acting to be a public service announcer or an advocate and yet, by virtue of this show and how we handle the subject matter that we've been given, that's kind of how it's evolved in certain ways.
- Christopher Meloni

Every man who says frankly and fully what he thinks is doing a public service.
- Leslie Stephen

By the same token, I think news has more and more of a pro bono aspect to all the networks. When we do our election coverages throughout this coming year, it's not a money-maker for us. It is more of a public service situation.
- Leslie Moonves

It's not wrong to hustle hustlers. It's like killing murderers, a public service. -Damon Salvatore
- L J Smith

Here is an old tradition badly in need of return: You have to earn your way into politics. You should go have a life, build a string of accomplishments, then enter public service...
- Peggy Noonan

The backwoodsmen are muttering about making Britain's draconian union laws - already among the toughest in Europe - harsher still. And parts of the media will continue to attack public service pensions, as if school meals staff, refuse collectors and healthcare workers have no right to a decent retirement.
- Frances Ogrady

My impression is that most women public service workers have a long fuse. Precisely because they care so deeply about services, more than anyone, they still want to find a sensible and fair negotiated agreement. But their patience has run out.
- Frances Ogrady

And in my own life, in my own small way, I've tried to give back to this country that has given me so much. That's why I left a job at a law firm for a career in public service, working to empower young people to volunteer in their communities. Because I believe that each of us - no matter what our age or background or walk of life - each of us has something to contribute to the life of this nation.
- Michelle Obama

And you realise you're doing a public service in making people happy - as a musician you can give people something a doctor, a lawyer, a politician cannot give them that. It's not scientific. It's spiritual - a good feeling. And although you don't know them personally, the audience are like your friends.
- Billy Ocean

My whole life has been dedicated to public service.
- Leon Panetta

Virtue comes through contemplation of the divine, and the exercise of philosophy. But it also comes through public service. The one is incomplete without the other. Power without wisdom is tyranny; wisdom without power is pointless.
- Iain Pears

Once you start to provide public services that have to be run under public rules, for example child protection, then it has to go with public law. Institutions have to make a decision whether they want to do that or they don't want to do that.
- Trevor Phillips

In addition to fines, violators of decency standards could be required to air public service announcements serving educational and informational needs of children.
- Charles W Pickering

Classic nineteenth century European imperialists believed they were literally on a mission. I don't believe that the imperialists these days have that same sense of public service. They are simply pirates.
- John Pilger

It is not about the money. It's the public service aspect. Absolutely, I think it has qualities of redemption. The city gets a second chance. I get a second chance.
- John Rowland

Enjoy your time in public service. It may well be one of the most interesting and challenging times of your life.
- Donald Rumsfeld

The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand. The fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism.
- Paul Ryan

Understandably, no peace can sustained when people continue to suffer from hunger, lack of jobs, lack of basic public services - and most of all - lack of opportunity or hope.
- Mikhail Saakashvili

I've had a lot of fun, and when I talk to kids in journalism schools, I say, look, I know what the journalism teachers tell you that this is a great way to perform public service and all that, but I say the main reason, if you decide what you want to do is be a reporter, the main reason you want to do it is because it's just so much fun.
- Bob Schieffer

I think journalism is a great way to do public service, to have an impact on your community.
- Bob Schieffer

I feel that my father's greatest legacy was the people he inspired to get involved in public service and their communities, to join the Peace Corps, to go into space. And really that generation transformed this country in civil rights, social justice, the economy and everything.
- Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg

I have a lifelong devotion to public service.
- Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg

I did not realize that when money becomes a core value, then education drives towards utility or that the life of the mind will not be counted as good unless it produces measurable results. That public services will no longer be important. That an alternative life to getting and spending will become very difficult as cheap housing disappears. That when communities are destroyed only misery and intolerance are left.
- Jeanette Winterson

I think that public service is tough on a family - no ifs, ands, buts about it. I have my own personal wishes, but they're not always front and center.
- Maria Shriver

When I left SEIU, we had started this quality public service agenda to say to our members what I think the United Auto Workers learned: that quality is our only job security in the long run.
- Andy Stern

The difference between burlesque and the newspapers is that the former never pretended to be performing a public service by exposure.
- I F Stone

Growing up, I was encouraged to get a good education, get a real job doing something I enjoyed, and, should the opportunity present itself, consider public service as just that: a chance to serve, not an end in itself.
- John Sununu

Like a lot of people, I'm interested in public service and want to do as much as I can to change the direction of this country and will give some consideration to that after midterm elections.
- John Thune

You don't ever earn a right to stop doing anything if you feel there is an obligation to move in terms of public service.
- Douglas Wilder