Public Services Quotes

Privatization is a neoliberal and imperialist plan. Health can't be privatized because it is a fundamental human right, nor can education, water, electricity and other public services. They can't be surrendered to private capital that denies the people from their rights. ~ Hugo Chavez

The Council also commands933 that the public services of the Church shall not be celebrated in the vulgar tongue, but in a fixed language, each one according to the ancient formularies approved by the Church. ~ Francis De Sales

Consider a mug of American coffee. It is found everywhere. It can be made by anyone. It is cheap - and refills are free. Being largely without flavor, it can be diluted to taste. What it lacks in allure it makes up in size. It is the most democratic method ever devised for introducing caffeine into human beings. Now take a cup of Italian espresso. It requires expensive equipment. Price-to-volume ratio is outrageous, suggesting indifference to the consumer and ignorance of the market. The aesthetic satisfaction accessory to the beverage far outweighs its metabolic impact. It is not a drink; it is an artifact.

This contrast can stand for the differences between America and Europe - differences nowadays asserted with increased frequency and not a little acrimony on both sides of the Atlantic. The mutual criticisms are familiar. To American commentators Europe is 'stagnant.' Its workers, employers, and regulations lack the flexibility and adaptability of their U.S. counterparts. The costs of European social welfare payments and public services are 'unsustainable.' Europe's aging and 'cossetted' populations are underproductive and self-satisfied. In a globalized world, the 'European social model' is a doomed mirage. This conclusion is typically drawn even by 'liberal' American observers, who differ from conservative (and neoconservative) critics only in deriving no pleasure from it.

To a growing number of Europeans, however, it is America that is in trouble a ~ Tony Judt

The people who work within these industries or public services know that there are basic flaws. But they are almost forced to ignore them and to concentrate instead on patching here, improving there, fighting the fire or caulking that crack. They are thus unable to take the innovation seriously, let alone to try to compete with it. They do not, as a rule, even notice it until it has grown so big as to encroach on their industry or service, by which time it has become irreversible. In the meantime, the innovators have the field to themselves. ~ Peter F. Drucker

Of all the public services, education is the one I'm most interested in. You get a more dynamic economy, you deal with most social problems, and it's morally right. ~ George Osborne

Each one of these decisions, even when they were ultimately reversed, set recovery efforts back further. Is this all a masterful conspiracy to make sure Puerto Ricans are too desperate, distracted, and despairing to resist Wall Street's bitter economic medicine? I don't believe it's anything that coordinated. Much of this is simply what happens when you bleed the public sphere for decades, laying off competent workers and neglecting basic maintenance. Run-of-the-mill corruption and cronyism are no doubt at work as well.

But it's also true that many governments have deployed a starve-then-sell strategy when it comes to public services: cut health care/transit/education to the bone until people are so disillusioned and desperate that they are willing to try anything, including selling off those services altogether. And if Rosselló and the Trump administration have seemed remarkably unconcerned about the nonstop relief and reconstruction screw-ups, the attitude may be at least partly informed by an understanding that the worse things get, the stronger the case for privatization becomes. ~ Naomi Klein

Those who use our public services should be able to deal directly with those who manage and deliver them. ~ Charles Kennedy

While vast sums of money are being siphoned off into hidden [military] coffers, Americas schools, hospitals and public services are facing cutbacks and closures. ~ Henry Waxman

I have said repeatedly I do want to take longer to eliminate the deficit than the other parties. Because I want to see us have the ability to invest more in our economy, in our public services, and in lifting people out of poverty. ~ Nicola Sturgeon

Society is the total of the forced or voluntary services that men perform for each other; that is to say, of public services and private services. ~ Frederic Bastiat

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

Our budget also reflects key components of our campaign. It's very much focused on stabilizing public services, restoring stability to public services and investing in job creation and economic diversification and, generally speaking, acting as a cushion during this economy, something fundamentally different than what the other parties proposed in the last election. ~ Rachel Notley

Sinn Fein is an Irish Republican party. We stood in the Assembly election to deliver a prosperous economy and jobs, to protect and enhance public services, support those most in need, and to progress Irish Unity. ~ Martin McGuinness

There seems to be a vicious cycle at work here, making ours not just an economy but a culture of extreme inequality. Corporate decision makers, and even some two-bit entrepreneurs like my boss at The Maids, occupy an economic position miles above that of the underpaid people whose labor they depend on. For reasons that have more to do with class - and often racial - prejudice than with actual experience, they tend to fear and distrust the category of people from which they recruit their workers. Hence the perceived need for repressive management and intrusive measures like drug and personality testing. But these things cost money - $20,000 or more a year for a manager, $100 a pop for a drug test, and so on - and the high cost of repression results in ever more pressure to hold wages down. The larger society seems to be caught up in a similar cycle: cutting public services for the poor, which are sometimes referred to collectively as the 'social wage,' while investing ever more heavily in prisons and cops. And in the larger society, too, the cost of repression becomes another factor weighing against the expansion or restoration of needed services. It is a tragic cycle, condemning us to ever deeper inequality, and in the long run, almost no one benefits but the agents of repression themselves. ~ Barbara Ehrenreich

In a community where public services have failed to keep abreast of private consumption things are very different. Here, in an atmosphere of private opulence and public squalor, the private goods have full sway. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith

It matters because the emerging civic structures and spatial arrangements of the digital era will profoundly affect our access to economic opportunities and public services, the character and content of public discourse, ~ William J. Mitchell

It is such a disappointment in American political reaction and actions. When some of our politicians are flying around the country in private airplanes all the time, using public services as their mode of private transportation, and then criticizing us who are in business. ~ Arnold Palmer

Experience shows that nothing is operated with less economy and with more waste of labor and material of every kind than public services and undertakings. Private enterprise on the other hand naturally induces the owner to work with the greatest economy in his own interest. ~ Ludwig Von Mises

I'm not so sure liberal democracy as we know it has reached its terminus. It's clear though, that many have genuinely lost confidence in the Australian political class. One reason is that we like to place enormous burdens of expectations on modern political leaders. To be sure such expectations aren't always honest. Just as we want better public services but object to paying the higher taxes that would make them possible, we often want leadership but only if there aren't hard choices with real consequences. ~ Tim Soutphommasane

In Venezuela Chavez has made the co-ops a top political priority, giving them first refusal on government contracts and offering them economic incentives to trade with one another. By 2006, there were roughly 100,000 co-operatives in the country, employing more than 700,000 workers. Many are pieces of state infrastructure – toll booths, highway maintenance, health clinics – handed over to the communities to run. It's a reverse of the logic of government outsourcing – rather than auctioning off pieces of the state to large corporations and losing democratic control, the people who use the resources are given the power to manage them, creating, at least in theory, both jobs and more responsive public services. Chavez's many critics have derided these initiatives as handouts and unfair subsidies, of course. Yet in an era when Halliburton treats the U.S. government as its personal ATM for six years, withdraws upward of $20 billion in Iraq contracts alone, refuses to hire local workers either on the Gulf coast or in Iraq, then expresses its gratitude to U.S. taxpayers by moving its corporate headquarters to Dubai (with all the attendant tax and legal benefits), Chavez's direct subsidies to regular people look significantly less radical. ~ Naomi Klein

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

We need a government which, yes, guarantees basic standards in public services, but which also steps in to protect people's wellbeing as they take part in our consumer democracy - particularly online. ~ David Blunkett

They're so broke that they've actually cut essential services. In many places, they've cut policemen, because, who the fuck needs them? Or firemen, son of a bitch, it's much more fun watching something burn down. ~ Lewis Black

Working in Britain, particularly in the public services, they should be prepared to accept the terms and conditions of their employment. To claim special communal rights (or should one say rites?) leads to a dangerous fragmentation within society. This communalism is a canker; whether practised by one colour or another it is to be strongly condemned. ~ Enoch Powell

Nigel Farage wanted to privatise the health service. Nigel Farage does not believe in the values we believe in for our public services. ~ Gordon Brown

Many people still regard many users of public services as undeserving. ~ Elaine MacDonald

I hold that two principles are important; first that there should be a steady expansion of public services, not an irregular one related to revenue accruing in any particular year; the second that taxes should be constant over long periods (provided, that is, that they are neither burdensome nor inequitable). ~ John James Cowperthwaite

I believe in public services. ~ George Osborne

The linkage between tax rates and public services is, if not non-existent, negative. ~ Arthur Laffer

Economic activity, especially the activity of a market economy, cannot be conducted in an institutional, juridical or political vacuum. On the contrary, it presupposes sure guarantees of individual freedom and private property, as well as a stable currency and efficient public services. ~ Pope John Paul II

Not so great in England at the moment; in an online poll we came last, we actually came bottom of European countries for quality of life, because of things like the weather, obviously, late retirement, poor holiday, poor public services, poor health service; it's basically just a kind of grey, godless wilderness, full of cold pies and broken dreams. ~ Bill Bailey

A new governing majority will depend on two breakthroughs. The first is that voters, not big money, once again determine election outcomes. We need to break out of the money-politics-media trap. The second is that government be able to translate increased revenues into effective public services and infrastructure. We need, in short, a return to civic virtue, in which Americans recommit to contributing to the common benefit and to cooperating for mutual gain. ~ Jeffrey D. Sachs

Smart cities are those who manage their resources efficiently. Traffic, public services and disaster response should be operated intelligently in order to minimize costs, reduce carbon emissions and increase performance. ~ Eduardo Paes

Everybody knows - but no one wants to say - that the Democratic Party has become the party of special interest bigots and racial dividers. It runs the one-party state that controls public services in every major inner city, including the corrupt and failing school systems in which half the students - mainly African American and Hispanic - are denied a shot at the American dream. ~ David Horowitz

When it comes to our public services, decentralisation means giving power back to those on the front line - our doctors, nurses, teachers and physiotherapists, and our locally elected officials. ~ Charles Kennedy

Relatively homogeneous societies invest more in public goods, indicating a higher level of public altruism. For example, the degree of ethnic homogeneity correlates with the government's share of gross domestic product as well as the average wealth of citizens. Case studies of the United States find that multi-ethnic societies are less charitable and less able to cooperate to develop public infrastructure. A recent multi-city study of municipal spending on public goods in the United States found that ethnically or racially diverse cities spend a smaller portion of their budgets and less per capita on public services than do the more homogeneous cities. ~ Frank K. Salter

All Americans, not only in the states most heavily affected but in every place in this country, are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country. The jobs they hold might otherwise be held by citizens or legal immigrants; the public services they use impose burdens on our taxpayers. That's why our administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders more by hiring a record number of new border guards, by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as ever before, by cracking down on illegal hiring, by barring welfare benefits to illegal aliens. ~ William J. Clinton

The vision of personalised public services - meeting the individual needs of all our citizens - requires continuing reform in the way services are delivered ~ Gordon Brown

Many states can no longer afford to support public education, public benefits, public services without doing something about the exorbitant costs that mass incarceration have created. ~ Bryan Stevenson

Progressive taxes are inherently flawed in that they fund public services which are often location-dependent, thus adding to the value of owned land. Thus, any tax that pays for public services without obtaining revenue from resulting land value increases is fundamentally unjust. ~ Martin Adams

In the short walk between his aeroplane and reaching the outside world at Heathrow, Michael Bywater encountered no fewer than 93 separate notices telling him off for things he hadn't done or which hadn't even occurred to him to do. Being bossed and patronised are two sensations that most sophisticated adults would sooner do without and yet we are bossed and patronised, by the media, by politicians, by business, by advertising agencies and the public services, more now than at any other time in our history. Why should this be? ~ Alexander Waugh

This reduction of 'society' to a thin membrane of interactions between private individuals is presented today as the ambition of libertarians and free marketeers. But we should never forget that it was first and above all the dream of Jacobins, Bolsheviks and Nazis: if there is nothing that binds us together as a community or society, then we are utterly dependent upon the state. Governments that are too weak or discredited to act through their citizens are more likely to seek their ends by other means: by exhorting, cajoling, threatening and ultimately coercing people to obey them. The loss of social purpose articulated through public services actually increases the unrestrained powers of the over-mighty state. ~ Tony Judt

The fact that the Conservatives are losing voters to UKIP while struggling to attract those who voted for other parties in 2010 suggests they have still not successfully shown what a Conservative government is for. This needs to be done on a broad front in a way that encompasses the economy and public services. ~ Michael Ashcroft

Through job creation, quality public services and better working conditions, people, communities and countries can lift themselves out of poverty, improve livelihoods, engage in local development and live together in peace. This happens only when work is decent - environmentally sound and productive - provides fair wages, and is underpinned by rights ~ Sharan Burrow

That no man, or set of men, are entitled to exclusive or separate emoluments or privileges from the community, but in consideration of public services; which, not being descendible, neither ought the offices of magistrate, legislator, or judge to be hereditary. ~ George Mason

As my parents taught me, by both words and deeds, a life of public services is as much a gift to the person who serves as it is to those he's serving. ~ Merrick Garland

The people of Ontario have a right to know how their dollars are being spent. Ontario has the leanest government in Canada while still providing high-quality public services that people can rely on. Today, we are releasing the 2014 Public Sector Salary Disclosure list as part of our government's commitment to be the most open and transparent government in the country. ~ Deb Matthews

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

The battle for public support for the wars was played out through a combination of the liberal 'feminist' discourse of rights and the hawkish premise that only carpet-bombing the oppressive enemy could solve the problem. ~ Nina Power

If you wanted to kill a city, that is the recipe. And yet Flint was very much alive. In 2014, the year of switch to a new source of drinking water, it was the seventh-largest city in the state. On weekdays, its population swelled as people commuted into town for work in teh county government, the region's major medical centers, four college campuses, and other economic anchors. For all the empty space, teens in shining dresses still posed for prom photos in the middle of Saginaw Street, the bumpy brick road that is Flint's main thoroughfare. Parents still led their children by the hand into the public library for Saturday story time. Older gentlemen lingered at the counter of one of Flint's ubiquitous Coney Island diners, and the waitresses at Grandma's Kitchen on Richfield Road kept the coffee flowing. For about ninety-nine thousand people, Flint was home. ~ Anna Clark

As far back as she could remember, she had gone in for day-dreams about what clothes, jewellery and the like she would wear if, like her admired and adored Marie Antoinette, she were somehow to find herself facing public execution. A country GP's visit was hardly on that scale, but the principle held. ~ Kingsley Amis

I wandered through various public rooms, glory below, gloom above: for the look of lust always is gloomy; lust is never quite sure
even when the velvety victim is locked up in one's dungeon
that some rival devil or influential god may still not abolish one's prepared triumph. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

The only remaining superpower is international public opinion. ~ Simon Anholt

I discovered that wearing the veil is not suitable for a woman who wants to work in activism and the public domain. People need to see you, to associate and relate to you. It is not stated in my religion to wear the veil; it is a traditional practice, so I took it off. ~ Tawakkol Karman

We did live in dire poverty. And one of the things that I hated was poverty. Some people hate spiders. Some people hate snakes. I hated poverty. I couldn't stand it. My mother couldn't stand the fact that we were doing poorly in school, and she prayed and she asked God to give her wisdom. What could she do to get her young sons to understand the importance of developing their minds so that they control their own lives? God gave her the wisdom. At least in her opinion. My brother and I didn't think it was that wise. Turn off the TV, let us watch only two or three TV programs during the week. And with all that spare time read two books a piece from the Detroit Public Libraries and submit to her written book reports, which she couldn't read but we didn't know that. I just hated this. My friends were out having a good time. Her friends would criticize her. My mother didn't care. But after a while I actually began to enjoy reading those books. Because we were very poor, but between the covers of those books I could go anywhere. I could be anybody. I could do anything. I began to read about people of great accomplishment. And as I read those stories, I began to see a connecting thread. I began to see that the person who has the most to do with you, and what happens to you in life, is you. You make decisions. You decide how much energy you want to put behind that decision. And I came to understand that I had control of my own destiny. And at that point I didn't hate poverty anymore, ~ Ben Carson

For it is a conspicuous feature of democracy, as it evolves from generation to generation, that it leads people increasingly to take up public positions on the private affairs of others ... each person thus becomes his own fantasy despot, disposing of others and their resources as he or she thinks desirable. ~ Kenneth Minogue

I didn't grow up in public life. I lived with my mother in Boston, not in Washington, DC, so I was somewhat sheltered from that. ~ Alexandra Kerry

It is your tax which pays for public spending. The government have no money of their own. There is only taxpayers' money. ~ Margaret Thatcher

At the turn of the [21st] century it was really Sergey Brin at Google who just had the thought of, well, if we give away all the information services, but we make money from advertising, we can make information free and still have capitalism. But the problem with that is it reneges on the social contract where people still participate in the formal economy. And it's a kind of capitalism that's totally self-defeating because it's so narrow. It's a winner-take-all capitalism that's not sustaining. ~ Jaron Lanier

I find that the critics of voluntary service are all too often those who are prepared to accept such services when they require them but deride them with cynicism and scepticism when they see others helping and being helped. ~ Eva Hart

The view that we know less than we thought we knew about how to change the human condition came, in time, to be called neoconservatism. Many ... , myself included, disliked the term because we did not think we were conservative, neo or paleo. (I voted for John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey and worked in the latter's presidential campaign.) It would have been better if we had been called policy skeptics; that is, people who thought it was hard, though not impossible, to make useful and important changes in public policy. ~ James Q. Wilson

I'd have to say that Nixon feels like the public figure who most dominated my life - from the time I went to fourth grade wearing a Nixon-Lodge button in the fall of 1960, through my college years, which overlapped with Kent State, Cambodia, the China trip and all the rest. ~ Thomas Mallon

Judges rule on the basis of law, not public opinion, and they should be totally indifferent to pressures of the times. ~ Warren E. Burger

How sad is it that this tiff sort of cheers me up? If two of the most distinguished, dedicated, and thoughtful public servants in the history of this republic could not find a way to agree to disagree, how can we expect the current crop of congressional blockheads to get along? While ~ Sarah Vowell

A public man has no right to let his actions be determined by particular interests. He does the same thing as a judge who accepts a bribe. Like a judge he must consider what is right, not what is advantageous to a party or class. ~ Lord Acton

We in politics are accustomed to seeing reality firsthand and then watching its distant cousin, events as portrayed by the media, unfold on our televisions. We know that what happened in Congress and what is reported to have taken place are two very different things. But that disjuncture, so familiar to politicians, is new to the viewing public. By seeing war and war coverage juxtaposed nightly on their screens, Americans have learned the crucial lesson: not to trust the news anchors. ~ Dick Morris

It is time to end the discrimination against people who need treatment for chemical addiction. It is time for Congress to deal with our Nation's number one public health problem. ~ Jim Ramstad

King's response to our crisis can be put in one word: revolution. A revolution in our priorities, a reevaluation of our values, a reinvigoration of our public life and a fundamental transformation of our way of thinking and living that promotes a transfer of power from oligarchs and plutocrats to everyday people and ordinary citizens. ~ Cornel West

The busy 20th and 21st centuries have made Garfield's era seem remote and irrelevant, its leaders ridiculed for their very obscurity... to the generation of Americans then alive, though, their dramas, humanities, and dignity were a compelling part of daily life. For twenty years after the Civil War, America was led by a group of larger-than-life figures with clay feet who fought and raged and plied their craft with nerve and ambition while following a code of honor riddled with blind spots and inconsistencies; during that time, public involvement in politics reached levels far higher than today. Garfield held a special place: one of the most promising of his generation, shot down in his prime, martyred for taking a principled stand. ~ Kenneth D. Ackerman

Freeh infuriated the White House almost every day for more than seven years. One case among many was the FBI's immense investigation into allegations that China's intelligence services had bought political influence at the White House through illegal campaign contributions. ~ Tim Weiner

Boris Nemtsov, left his mark on the history of Russia, in politics and public life. He worked on important positions in the difficult transition period for our country. He always openly and honestly stated his position, defended his point of view. ~ Vladimir Putin

There is no worse mistake in public leadership than to hold out false hopes soon to be swept away. The ~ Winston S. Churchill

Mental health is often missing from public health debates even though it's critical to wellbeing. ~ Diane Abbott

"Solid wastes" are the discarded leftovers of our advanced consumer society. This growing mountain of garbage and trash represents not only an attitude of indifference toward valuable natural resources, but also a serious economic and public health problem. ~ Jimmy Carter

A man who will be the public leader, must know how to be the public follower. ~ Gautama Buddha

North Korea is one of few countries in the world that conducts public executions and is one of twenty- one countries that carry out executions. By retaining the death penalty and the arbitrary use of it, North Korea is in violation of the right to life. Through the arbitrary use of execution, North Korea is also violating the prohibition against the arbitrary deprivation of life.Conducting executions publicly is not compatible with respect for human dignity. ~ Sandra Fahy

It is only fair to expect public employees like me and others in the public sector to pay something close to what our neighbors and our fellow citizens do in the private sector. ~ Scott Walker

Lucky enough, through the public school system, I had been able to have some music education, and that gave me something to focus on, and discipline - like a family to feel part of. There was a healthy family. ~ Flea

Do Obama and Boxer realize they are on the wrong side of a tsunami of voter discontent with a government run by and for the public employee unions? ~ Mickey Kaus

Criticism alone can sever the root of materialism, fatalism, atheism, free-thinking, fanaticism, and superstition, which can be injurious universally; as well as of idealism and skepticism, which are dangerous chiefly to the Schools, and hardly allow of being handed on to the public. ~ Immanuel Kant

What fascinated me, it was not the glory, but the contact with the public. ~ Jacky Ickx

I try to stay away from the craft services table on set! That's probably why I am able to still get work in this business: I stay away from junk food. ~ Christian Slater

Character must show itself in the man's
performance both of the duty he owes himself and of the duty he owes the state.
The man's foremast duty is owed to himself and his family; and he can do this
duty only by earning money, by providing what is essential to material wellbeing;
it is only after this has been done that he can hope to build a higher
superstructure on the solid material foundation; it is only after this has been
done that he can help in his movements for the general well-being. He must pull
his own weight first, and only after this can his surplus strength be of use to the
general public. It is not good to excite that bitter laughter which expresses
contempt; and contempt is what we feel for the being whose enthusiasm to
benefit mankind is such that he is a burden to those nearest him; who wishes to
do great things for humanity in the abstract, but who cannot keep his wife in
comfort or educate his children. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

The advocates of public control cannot do without inflation. They need it in order to finance their policy of reckless spending and of lavishly subsidizing and bribing the voters. ~ Ludwig Von Mises

The police are the public face of government corruption. ~ Steven Magee

In my public life, I'm just a guy who enjoys having fun. ~ Brett Ratner

I respect very much my public and also the music I perform. ~ Andrea Bocelli

The more powerful a person or institution is, the more transparent - open to public inspection or oversight - its activities should be. The less powerful, the less transparent. ~ George Scialabba

Those who purify your water, inspect your meat, and test your kids' toys, as well as a huge number of nurses, teachers, and our soldiers, are public employees. The firefighters who don't hesitate to rush toward danger while you run away from it - they are all public employees. ~ Jennifer Granholm

On Startups: "I hate it when people call themselves "entrepreneurs" when what they're really trying to do is launch a startup and then sell or go public, so they can cash in and move on. ~ Walter Isaacson

By granting to the senators the privilege of being chosen for several years, and being renewed seriatim, the law takes care to preserve in the legislative body a nucleus of men already accustomed to public business, and capable of exercising a salutary influence upon the junior members. ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

That thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you is usually what you need to find, and finding it is a matter of getting lost. The word 'lost' comes from the old Norse 'los' meaning the disbanding of an army…I worry now that people never disband their armies, never go beyond what they know.

Advertising, alarmist news, technology, incessant busyness, and the design of public and private life conspire to make it so. A recent article about the return of wildlife to suburbia described snow-covered yards in which the footprints of animals are abundant and those of children are entirely absent. Children seldom roam, even in the safest places… I wonder what will come of placing this generation under house arrest. ~ Rebecca Solnit

Sophie stared at the door, trying desperately to keep her eyes focused on anything but Benedict. She'd spent all week hoping for a glimpse,but now that he was here, all she wanted was to escape. If she looked at his face, her eyes inevitably strayed to his lips. And if she looked at his lips, her thoughts immediately went to their kiss. And if she thought about the kiss...
"I need that thimble," she blurted out, jumping to her feet. There were some things one just shouldn't think about in public.
"So you said," Benedict murmured, one of his eyebrows quirking up into a perfect-and perfectly arrogant-arch.
"It's downstairs," she muttered. "In my room."
"But your room is upstairs," Hyacinth said.
Sophie could have killed her. "That's what I said," she ground out.
"No," Hyacinth said in a matter-of-fact tone, "you didn't."
"Yes," Lady Bridgerton said, "she did. I heard her."
Sophie twisted her head sharply to look at Lady Bridgerton and knew in an instant that the older woman had lied. "I have to get that thimble," she said, for what seemed like the thirtieth time. She hurried toward the doorway, gulping as she grew close to Benedict.
"Wouldn't want you to hurt yourself," he said, stepping aside to allow her through the doorway.But as she brushed past him, he leaned forward, whispering, "Coward. ~ Julia Quinn

I think that the legitimacy of the court would be undermined in any case if the court made a decision based on its perception of public opinion. ~ Samuel Alito

But it was reserved for Augustus to relinquish the ambitious design of subduing the whole earth, and to introduce a spirit of moderation into the public councils. Inclined to peace by his temper and situation, it was easy for him to discover that Rome, in her present exalted situation, had much less to hope than to fear from the chance of arms; and that, in the prosecution of remote wars, the undertaking became every day more difficult, the event more doubtful, and the possession more precarious, and less beneficial. ~ Edward Gibbon

It just felt like the right thing to do to give back to a state school and public school. I'm a really big fan of public education. ~ Brendan Iribe

Opinions are a private matter. The public has an interest only in judgments. ~ Walter Benjamin