[The people] have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers.
John Adams (1735–1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797–1801)
Essay (1765-09-30), “A Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law,” No. 3, Boston Gazette
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Quotations about:
public official
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I can imagine no greater disservice to the country than to establish a system of censorship that would deny to the people of a free republic like our own their indisputable right to criticize their own public officials. While exercising the great powers of the office I hold, I would regret in a crisis like the one through which we are now passing to lose the benefit of patriotic and intelligent criticism.
Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) US President (1913-20), educator, political scientist
Letter to Arthur Brisbane (25 Apr 1917)Three weeks after the US entered WW I.
When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property, and justly liable to the inspection and vigilance of public opinion; and the more sensibly he is made to feel his dependence, the less danger will there be of his abuse of power.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Conversation (1807) with Baron Humboldt
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In Seymour, A Winter in Washington, ch. 9 (1824), further identified in Raynor, Life of Jefferson (1832). As it is all anecdotal, the accuracy may be easily questioned, but its proximity to the events lends it a certain validity.
What I call a great minister is one who employs the Way in serving his sovereign. If he cannot do that, he resigns.
[所謂大臣者、以道事君、不可則止。]
Confucius (c. 551- c. 479 BC) Chinese philosopher, sage, politician [孔夫子 (Kǒng Fūzǐ, K'ung Fu-tzu, K'ung Fu Tse), 孔子 (Kǒngzǐ, Chungni), 孔丘 (Kǒng Qiū, K'ung Ch'iu)]
The Analects [論語, 论语, Lúnyǔ], Book 11, verse 24, sec. 3 (11.24.3) (6th C. BC – AD 3rd C.) [tr. Hinton (1998)]
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Numbered 11.23 by Legge and other early translators, as noted. More recent translators use 11.24, though some use 11.22. All are noted below.
(Source (Chinese)). Alternate translations:What is called a great minister is one who serves his prince according to what is right; and when he finds he cannot do so, retires.
[tr. Legge (1861), 11.23]Those whom we call 'great ministers' are such as serve their prince conscientiously, and who, when they cannot do so, retire.
[tr. Jennings (1895), 11.23]Men I call statesmen are those who will serve their master according to their sense of duty; who, however, when they find they cannot do that, consistently, with their sense of duty, will resign.
[tr. Ku Hung-Ming (1898)]He who may be called a great minister is one who serves his Prince according to the right, and when that cannot be, resigns.
[tr. Soothill (1910) 11.23]You call a man a great minister when be serves his prince honestly. and retires when he cannot.
[tr. Pound (1933), 11.23]What I call a great minister is one who will only serve is prince while he can do so without infringement of the Way, and as soon as this is impossible, resigns.
[tr. Waley (1938), 11.23]The so-called great minister serves his prince in keeping with The Right Way, and if that is impossible, he quits his post.
[tr. Ware (1950), 11.22]The term "great minister" refers to those who serve their lord according to the Way and who, when this is no longer possible, relinquish office.
[tr. Lau (1979), 11.24]What I call a great minister serves his ruler in accordance with the Way, and when it is impossible to do so he resigns.
[tr. Dawson (1993), 11.22]A great minister is a minister who serves his lord by following the Way, and who resigns as soon as the two are no longer reconcilable.
[tr. Leys (1997), 11.24]Those who are called great ministers use the Way to serve the sovereign. If thye cannot, they should then stop.
[tr. Huang (1997), 11.22]The persons named as the Great Officials, should service the Lords with the benevolent way, and stop if the way does not work.
[tr. Cai/Yu (1998), #284, 11.24]What are called great ministers are those who serve their lord with the way [dao], and when they cannot, resign.
[tr. Ames/Rosemont (1998), 11.24]Those whom one calls great ministers serve their ruler according to the Way, and when they can no longer, they stop.
[tr. Brooks/Brooks (1998), 11:22]What we call "great ministers" are those who seek to serve their lord by means of the Way, and who resign if unable to do so.
[tr. Slingerland (2003), 11.24]The term “great minister” applies to someone who serves the ruler according to the Way. If he cannot do that, he retires.
[tr. Watson (2007), 11.24]The term "great ministers" applies to those who serve their lord in a moral way. If they simply cannot, then they stop.
[tr. Chin (2014), 11.24]
Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President or any other public official save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him in so far as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth — whether about the President or about any one else.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901–1909)
Essay (1918-05), “Lincoln and Free Speech,” Metropolitan Magazine, Vol. 47, No. 6
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On war-time censorship by the Wilson Administration taken against critics of its handling of war efforts.
Reprinted in Appendix C of his The Great Adventure (1918), and as ch. 7 of that book in Vol. 21 of The Works of Theodore Roosevelt (1925), The Great Adventure.
See also Roosevelt and Roosevelt.
