Private Affairs Quotes & Sayings

Wolfe could get sentimental about it if he wanted to, but I don't like any stranger nosing around my private affairs, let alone a nation of 130 million people.-Archie Goodwin — Rex Stout

A newspaper is an adviser who does not require to be sought, but who comes of his own accord, and talks to you briefly every day of the common wealth, without distracting you from your private affairs. — Alexis De Tocqueville

The sole function of Government is to bring about a condition of affairs favorable to the beneficial development of private enterprise. — Herbert Hoover

The word "idiot" comes from a Greek root meaning private person. Idiocy is the female defect: intent on their private lives, women follow their fate through a darkness deep as that cast by malformed cells in the brain. It is no worse than the male defect, which is lunacy: men are so obsessed by public affairs that they see the world as by moonlight, which shows the outlines of every object but not the details indicative of their nature. — Rebecca West

Never crowd youngsters about their private affairs - sex especially. When they are growing up, they are nerve ends all over, and resent (quite properly) any invasion of their privacy. Oh, sure, they'll make mistakes - but that's their business, not yours. (You made your own mistakes, did you not?) — Robert A. Heinlein

Power breeds responsibilities, in international affairs as in domestic
or even private. To dodge or disclaim these responsibilities is one form of the abuse of power. — Irving Kristol

We are concerned in public affairs, but immersed in our private ones. — Walter Lippmann

It is a universal and fundamental political principle that the power to protect can safely be confided only to those interested in protecting, or their responsible agents - a maxim not less true in private than in public affairs. — John C. Calhoun

We have feudal governments in a commercial age. It would be but an easy extension of our commercial system, to pay a private emperor a fee for services, as we pay an architect, an engineer, or a lawyer. If any man has talent for righting wrong, for administering difficult affairs, for counselling poor farmers how to turn their estates to good husbandry, for combining a hundred private enterprises to a general benefit, let him in the county- town, or in Court-street, put up his sign-board, Mr. Smith, Governor, Mr. Johnson, Working king. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Love is a great force in private life; it is indeed the greatest of all things; but love in public affairs does not work. — E. M. Forster

Are we going to continue to yield personal liberties and community autonomy to the steady inexplicable centralization all political power or restore the Republic to Constitutional direction, regain our personal liberties and reassume the individual state's primary responsibility and authority in the conduct of local affairs? Are we going to permit a continuing decline in public and private morality or re-establish high ethical standards as the means of regaining a diminishing faith in the integrity of our public and private institutions? — Douglas MacArthur

Secret government programs that pry into people's private affairs are bound up with ideas about secrecy and privacy that arose during the process by which the mysterious became secular. — Jill Lepore

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

The men who administer public affairs must first of all see that everyone holds onto what is his, and that private men are never deprived of their goods by public men. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Prying into others' private affairs is the preferred occupation of small minds. — Loretta Chase

Were the judgments of mankind correct, custom would be regulated by the good. But it is often far otherwise in point of fact; for, whatever the many are seen to do, forthwith obtains the force of custom. But human affairs have scarcely ever been so happily constituted as that the better course pleased the greater number. Hence the private vices of the multitude have generally resulted in public error, or rather that common consent in vice which these worthy men would have to be law. — John Calvin

What is the secret mesmerism which friendship possesses, and under the operation of which a person ordinarily sluggish, or cold, or timid, becomes wise, active, and resolute, in another's behalf? As Alexis, after a few passes from Dr. Elliotson, despises pain, reads with the back of his head, sees miles off, looks into next week, and performs other wonders, of which, in his own private normal condition, he is quite incapable; so you see, in the affairs of the world and under the magnetism of friendships, the modest man becomes bold, the shy confident, the lazy active, or the impetuous prudent and peaceful. What — William Makepeace Thackeray

Countries which enjoy the highest level of peace, happiness and prosperity are the ones where the law least interfered with private affairs. — Frederic Bastiat

It is simple to follow the easy and familiar path of personal ambition and private gain. It is more comfortable to sit content in the easy approval of friends and of neighbours than to risk the friction and the controversy that comes with public affairs. It is easier to fall in step with the slogans of others than to march to the beat of the internal drummer - to make and stand on judgements of your own. And it far easier to accept and to stand on the past, than to fight for the answers of the future — Daniel Webster

We cultivate refinement without extravagance and knowledge without effeminacy; wealth we employ more for use than for show, and place the real disgrace of poverty not in owning to the fact but in declining the struggle against it. Our public men have, besides politics, their private affairs to attend to, and our ordinary citizens, though occupied with the pursuits of industry, are still fair judges of public matters; for, unlike any other nation, regarding him who takes no part in these duties not as unambitious but as useless, we Athenians are able to judge at all events if we cannot originate, and instead of looking on discussion as a stumbling-block in the way of action, we think it an indispensable preliminary to any wise action at all. — Pericles

My rule, in which I have always found satisfaction, is, never to turn aside in public affairs through views of private interest; but to go straight forward in doing what appears to me right at the time, leaving the consequences with Providence. — Benjamin Franklin

[Persons] who are recognized as citizens in any one state of the Union [have] the right to enter every other state, whenever they pleased ... full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might meet; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went. — Jack Kevorkian

Hence as a private man has a right to say what wages he will give in his private affairs, so has a Community to determine what they will give and grant of their substance for the Administration of public affairs. — Samuel Adams

Of my private life I have nothing to say: it does not concern others. I have always had little liking for autobiographies and have no interest in anyone's affairs. History proper and novels hold no attractions for me except insofar as, I can discern there, as within our immortal Revolution, the adventures of the mind. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

People tell me I excel in Public Relations, what I suck at are private affairs. — Ioana-Cristina Casapu

The mania for giving the Government power to meddle with the private affairs of cities or citizens is likely to cause endless trouble. — Mark Twain

A wise man should not divulge the formula of a medicine which he has well prepared; an act of charity which he has performed; domestic conflicts; private affairs with his wife; poorly prepared food he may have been offered; or slang he may have heard. — Chanakya

How much better would it now be to win friends, pacify enemies, serve your country, turn your attention to private affairs, than to look around to see what harm you can do to some individual, what wound you can inflict on his good name, or his finances, or his person, though you cannot achieve this end without a dangerous struggle, even if your opponent is lower-born than you! — Seneca.

Hell is out of fashion - institutional hells at any rate. The populated infernos of the 20th century are more private affairs, the gaps between the bars are the sutures of one's own skull. A valid hell is one from which there is a possibility of redemption, even if this is never achieved, the dungeons of an architecture of grace whose spires point to some kind of heaven. The institutional hells of the present century are reached with one-way tickets, marked Nagasaki and Buchenwald, worlds of terminal horror even more final than the grave. — J.G. Ballard

Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage. — Ambrose Bierce

Bourgeois existence is the regime of private affairs ... and the family is the rotten, dismal edifice in whose closets and crannies the most ignominious instincts are deposited. Mundane life proclaims the total subjugation of eroticism to privacy. — Walter Benjamin

The very essence of our civilization is that we give a paramount place to morality in all our affairs, public or private. — Mahatma Gandhi

I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. — George Washington

By obliging men to turn their attention to other affairs than their own, it rubs off that private selfishness which is the rust of society. — Alexis De Tocqueville

A national security letter cannot be used to authorize eavesdropping or to read the contents of e-mail. But it does permit investigators to trace revealing paths through the private affairs of a modern digital citizen. — Barton Gellman

Archie.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Do I ever intrude in your private affairs?'
'Yes, sir. Frequently. But you think you don't, so go right ahead. — Rex Stout

When it comes to your personal life, such as love and romance, girls should take a tip from the men and keep their affairs to themselves. Any man worth his salt regards his private life as his own. To kiss a girl and run and tell would mark him as a cad. Why doesn't that apply to girls also? — Carole Lombard

Never speak about private affairs for the general public to hear. — Habeeb Akande

Whether we admit to it or not, all of us savor scandals involving paramours. At the back of it could be our innate desire to be the lover of every desirable dame that is born. In order to savor the details, we convert these private affairs into public scandals. If the involved were to be rich and famous, then we have them in the tabloids. It's as if we try to supplant the woman's lover in our dreams. — BS Murthy

To expect that men who do not honorably and intelligently conduct their private affairs will honorably and intelligently conduct the affairs of the community is to be a fool. — Ambrose Bierce

When spreading vicious and damaging gossip about the private affairs of others, one must always use proper grammar and posture. — Scott Rhine

This policy of supplying by opposite and rival interests, the defect of better motives, might be traced through the whole system of human affairs, both private and public. — James Madison

The private citizen today has come to feel rather like a deaf spectator in the back row, who ought to keep his mind on the mystery off there, but cannot quite manage to keep awake. He knows he is somehow affected by what is going on. Rules and regulations continually, taxes annually and wars occasionally remind him that he is being swept along by great drifts of circumstance. Yet these public affairs are in no convincing way his affairs. They are for the most part invisible. They are managed, if they are managed at all, at distant centers, from behind the scenes, by unnamed powers. — Walter Lippmann

The directors of such companies, however, being the managers rather of other people's money than of their own, it cannot well be expected, that they should watch over it with the same anxious vigilance with which the partners in a private copartnery frequently watch over their own ... Negligence and profusion, therefore, must always prevail, more or less, in the management of the affairs of such a company. — Adam Smith

In many ways, I think that, while we've been remarkably violent in our media, there's been a real schizophrenia. In private, on the Internet, and on public-affairs shows or talk radio, we're way more explicit than we've ever been. — Ivan Reitman

That feelings of love and hate make rational judgments impossible in public affairs, as in private affairs, we can clearly enough see in others, though not so clearly in ourselves. — Herbert Spencer

It is wonderful how preposterously the affairs of the world are managed. We assemble parliaments and councils to have the benefit of collected wisdom, but we necessarily have, at the same time, the inconvenience of their collected passions, prejudices and private interests: for regulating commerce an assembly of great men is the greatest fool on earth — Benjamin Franklin

[T]here are, at bottom, basically two ways to order social affairs, Coercively, through the mechanisms of the state - what we can call political society. And voluntarily, through the private interaction of individuals and associations - what we can call civil society ... In a civil society, you make the decision. In a political society, someone else does ... Civil society is based on reason, eloquence, and persuasion, which is to say voluntarism. Political society, on the other hand, is based on force. — Ed Crane

To hell with your money
No no come on I belong to the family now see I know how it is with a young fellow he has lots of private affairs it's always pretty hard to get the old man to stump up for I know haven't I been there and not so long ago either but now I'm getting married and all specially up there come on don't be a fool listen when we get a chance for a real talk I want to tell you about a little widow over in town
I've heard that too keep your damned money
Call it a loan then just shut your eyes a minute and you'll be fifty
Keep your hands off of me you'd better get that cigar off the mantel — William Faulkner

The American learns about the law by participating in the making of it. He teaches himself about the forms of government by governing. He watches the great work of society being done every day before his eyes and, in a sense, by his hand.
In the United States, all of education is directed toward politics. In Europe, its principal purpose is to prepare people for private life. Citizens take part in public affairs too seldom to prepare them for it in advance. — Alexis De Tocqueville

With a little more patience and a little less temper, a gentler and wiser method might be found in almost every case; and the knot that we cut by some fine heady quarrel-scene in private life, or, in public affairs, by some denunciatory act against what we are pleased to call our neighbour's vices might yet have been unwoven by the hand of sympathy. — Robert Louis Stevenson

I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious beliefs or my political beliefs, or how I voted in any election, or any of these private affairs. — Pete Seeger

All the blogs, Facebook, Twitter are made by people who want to show their own private affairs at the price of making fakes, to try to appear such as they are not, to construct another personality, which is a veritable loss of identity. — Umberto Eco

I am moreover inclined to be concise when I reflect on the constant occupation of the citizens in public and private affairs, so that in their few leisure moments they may read and understand as much as possible. — Vitruvius

A comprehensive treatment plan for the heart's diseases is to deny the self of its desires, Enjoin hunger, keep worship vigilance in the night, be silent, and meditate in private; Also keep company with good people who possess sincerity, those who are emulated in their states and statements; And, finally, take refuge in the One unto whom all affairs return. That is the most beneficial treatment for all of the previous diseases. This must be to the point in which you are like a man drowning or someone lost in a barren desert and see no source of succor Except from the Guardian, possessor of the greatest power. He is the One who responds to the call of the distressed. — Hamza Yusuf

Politics and the affairs of State are dissociated from the orbit of the individual, and in so far as they cannot be repossessed as his living private property they must be rendered impotent. — John Carroll

We'd like to just write nothing but lyric poetry. The trouble is, the individual is going along intent on his own personal gratifications and love affairs and financial affairs and everything else. But loping alongside him is this fascist lout who keeps trying to take over. And if you keep ignoring him, he gets bigger and bigger, so every once in a while the free individual has to turn away from his private pursuits and give this fascist lout a few clouts, and beat him down to size. — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

A Progressive is one who is in favor of more taxes instead of less, more bureaus and jobholders, more paternalism and meddling, more regulation of private affairs and less liberty. In general, he would be inclined to regard the repeal of any tax as outrageous. — H.L. Mencken

The Revolutionist is a doomed man. He has no private interests, no affairs, sentiments, ties, property nor even a name of his own. His entire being is devoured by one purpose, one thought, one passion - the revolution. Heart and soul, not merely by word but by deed, he has severed every link with the social order and with the entire civilized world; with the laws, good manners, conventions, and morality of that world. He is its merciless enemy and continues to inhabit it with only one purpose - to destroy it. — Sergey Nechayev

What happens in the dark should not be brought to light. — Habeeb Akande

I don't like to meddle in my private affairs. — Karl Kraus

Civil officials have no business meddling in private religious affairs. — Thomas Jefferson