Quotes & Sayings About Public Figure

I feel strongly about HIV/AIDS and children because I'm a famous singer, a public figure, and I'm a female and a mother. I have the responsibility and the passion to help out and do whatever I can. — Peng Liyuan

It's much easier to be convincing if you care about your topic. Figure out what's important to you about your message and speak from the heart. — Nicholas Boothman

The more you stay in this kind of job, the more you realize that a public figure, a major public figure, is a lonely man. — Richard M. Nixon

When people come up to me and ask for a photo, ask for an autograph, I'm like 'Me? Are you sure?' I don't consider myself to be a public figure. I just happen to be. — Ryan Potter

Somebody said, "Well, you're going to write your definitive book about your life, biography." No, I'm not. I haven't done that. I wrote a book of letters which gives an insight into the real me as opposed to the public perceptions of me. But I'm convinced historians will figure out the things we got wrong and hopefully the things we got right. — George H. W. Bush

Well, something must be done for May, The time is drawing nigh
To figure in the Catalogue, And woo the public eye. Something I must invent and paint; But oh my wit is not Like one of those kind substantives That answer Who and What? — Thomas Hood

I don't mean to sugarcoat the figure on restatements, but I think it is positive - it shows a healthy system. The general impression of the public is that accounting rules are black and white. They are often anything but that, and in many instances the changes in earnings came after new interpretations by the chief accountant of the SEC. — Steve Odland

In one of the ornamented portions of the building, there is a figure of Justice; whereunto the Guide Book says, 'the artist at first contemplated giving more of nudity, but he was warned that the public sentiment in this country would not admit of it, and in his caution he has gone, perhaps, into the opposite extreme.' Poor Justice! she has been made to wear much stranger garments in America than those she pines in, in the Capitol. Let us hope that she has changed her dress-maker since they were fashioned, and that the public sentiment of the country did not cut out the clothes she hides her lovely figure in, just now. — Charles Dickens

...the man simply chooses not to be a public figure, an attitude that resonates on a frequency so out of phase with that of the prevailing culture that if Pynchon and Paris Hilton were ever to meet - the circumstances, I admit, are beyond imagining - the resulting matter/antimatter explosion would vaporize everything from here to Tau Ceti IV. — Arthur Salm

Your violin has only two strings," I say. "You're missing the other two."
Yes, he says. He's well aware.
"All I want to do is play music, and the crisis I'm having is right here. This one's gone," he says of the missing top string, "that one's gone, and this little guy's almost out of commission." His goal in life, Nathaniel tells me, is to figure out how to replace the strings. But he got used to playing imperfect instruments while taking music classes in Cleveland's public schools, and there's a lot you can do, he assures me, with just two strings — Steve Lopez

I have a different idea of elegance. I don't dress like a fop, it's true, but my moral grooming is impeccable. I never appear in public with a soiled conscience, a tarnished honor, threadbare scruples, or an insult that I haven't washed away. I'm always immaculately clean, adorned with independence and frankness. I may not cut a stylish figure, but I hold my soul erect. I wear my deeds as ribbons, my wit is sharper then the finest mustache, and when I walk among men I make truths ring like spurs. — Edmond Rostand

Even wondered about the difference?
Autobiography: The usually self-serving accounts of personal accomplishments by a public figure.
Memoir: The usually self-serving accounts of someone whose only accomplishments are often self-pity and vindictiveness. — Raul Ramos Y Sanchez

Foch never for a moment thought about the easy ways of bringing his name before the public and the political world, or even about acquiring a reputation for military insight among the chiefs of the French army. He never posed as a central figure at public functions; he was never interviewed by the press; he made no use of the professional reviews to bring his name before military readers. Ile never published a line until his chiefs suggested the publication of his lectures at the Staff College. From the day when he received his first commission he was a hard-working student of war, patiently preparing himself to do his duty when the opportunity came, and meanwhile content to put all his energies into the work assigned to him. Success in the career of arms is not always associated with high personal character or with this modest pursuit of duty for its own sake. — Andrew Hilliard Atteridge

This woman [Hillary Clinton] has been in public, has been a nationally known figure for over 30 years. Why does anybody have to tell us who she is? And why does she need to be "humanized"? — Rush Limbaugh

He that seeketh to be eminent amongst able men hath a great task; but that is ever good for the public. But he that plots to be the only figure amongst ciphers is the decay of a whole age. — Francis Bacon

It didn't take long to figure out I'll never go back to teaching public high school. Why would I, when I can make virtually the same money waiting tables, have no stress, and work half the hours? When I can give away or trade my shifts if I need time to write or study. When I'll never have to wake up early, take my work home, or talk to anyone's parents
unless it's in regards to the nightly specials, the Spanish grenache that pairs beautifully with our house-made mole sauce. — Nicole Hardy

I do know one thing: I wish people were doing more dangerous musicals, more courageous musicals and not just falling into the trap of trying to figure out what the public wants, because you find out that the public very often wants what's good. — Hal Price

Let's take this figure of the feminist killjoy seriously. Does the feminist kill other people's joy by pointing out moments of sexism? Or does she expose the bad feelings that get hidden, displaced, or negated under public signs of joy? Does bad feeling enter the room when somebody expresses anger about things, or could anger be the moment when the bad feelings that circulate through objects get brought to the surface in a certain way? — Sara Ahmed

When I was younger and women first started to get in public positions, in my case the law, we went through a period where we wore those little ribbon ties, little bows. We tried to figure out what was our appropriate dress. — Hillary Clinton

You're not going to become a great manager overnight. You're not going to become a great public speaker or figure out how to raise money. These are the things you want to start the clock on as early as possible. — Drew Houston

People who thought that she was busy going around trying to stir up difficulty where there was none or less than she imagined, were quite critical of her. She was, we must never forget, a public figure. And in democracies, public figures tend to attract criticism as well as praise. The most dangerous thing would be if anybody were regarded as above criticism. And Eleanor Roosevelt is, in recent years, getting there. — William A. Rusher

I have never felt the pain of not being white the way I've felt it since I've been a public figure/part of this entertainment industry. — Azealia Banks

It is perhaps an ugly comment on the American press, but the function of the interviewer on most newspapers is to entertain, not to shed light. . . . An interviewer soon begins to judge public figures on the basis of their entertainment value, overlooking their true importance. It is not easy to get an interview with Professor Franz Boas, the greatest anthropologist in the world, across a city desk, but a mild interview with Oom the Omnipotent will hit the bottom of page one under a two-column head. . . . It is safe to write accurately only about the nuts and bums. When a public figure does something ridiculous reporters may then write about him accurately. — Joseph Mitchell

My son is not a public figure to me, he is my son. I can't predict what's going to be in the headlines. Justin has always been someone who has to do things his way. And I have to be able to believe he will do the right thing and he will come out on top. — Pattie Mallette

Every thinking man, when he thinks, realizes that the teachings of the Bible are so interwoven and intertwined with our whole civic and social life that it would be literally, I do not mean figuratively, but literally impossible for us to figure what the loss would be if these teachings were removed. We would lose all the standards by which we now judge both public and private morals; all the standards toward which we, with more or less resolution, strive to raise ourselves. — Theodore Roosevelt

I don't really care what a public figure thinks. I care about what he does. Let God probe his inner heart. — Charles Krauthammer

It's my job to play this role that I'm cast in to the very best of my ability, the same as any other actor. You can't possibly be yourself in the public eye. All the little things that make us human don't stand up under the scrutiny of the camera. [on being a public figure] — Adrian Lamo

You know, there's nothing you can do about your public image. It is what it is. I just try to do things honestly. I guess honesty is what you would call subjective: if you feel good about what you're doing, yourself, if you figure you're doing the right thing. — Christopher Walken

Ten million dead. Gas. Passchendaele. Let that be now a large figure, now a chemical formula, now an historical account. But dear lord, not the Nameless Horror, the sudden prodigy sprung on a world unaware. We all saw it. There was no innovation, no special breach of nature, or suspension of familiar principles. If it came as any surprise to the public then their own blindness is the Great Tragedy, hardly the war itself. — Thomas Pynchon

Back in the 1980s, the 'News of the World' had specialised in digging into the privacy of criminals. In the 1990s, enriched by the excavation of Princess Diana's volatile life, they had widened their work to mine the activities of any celebrity, any public figure. — Nick Davies

A pottery outside Paris was turning out his picture on thick glazed crockery in a strident yellow and blue. This is what happens when you become a public figure; people eat their dinners off you. — Hilary Mantel

Apple chief executive Tim Cook is such a respected figure that it's easy to overlook the basic problem with his argument about encryption: Cook is asserting that a private company and the interests of its customers should prevail over the public's interest as expressed by our courts. — David Ignatius

For such will be our ruin if you, in the immensity of your public abstractions, forget the private figure, or if we in the intensity of our private emotions forget the public world. Both houses will be ruined, the public and the private, the material and the spiritual, for they are inseparably connected. — Virginia Woolf

I don't think it's easy for women to watch themselves age. And I think it's obviously doubly hard to grow older when you are a public figure and you constantly have to see your image all the time, and people are constantly pointing it out. — Michelle Pfeiffer

Politicians tend to live "in character" and many a public figure has come to imitate the journalism that describes him. — Walter Lippmann

I saw the figure of 178 Billion wasted/stolen from the people of a country by its corrupt and inept government. Such a figure could truly transform the entire country; education, health, roads, schooling, entrepreneurial environment ... of millions of people, rather than be secreted away as a few more 0000's in global bank accounts for the greeders.
We need to Rethink Public Service, Values, Ethics and Leadership. — Tony Dovale

I never wanted to be a public figure. I feel that I always have to dampen down people's expectations. They expect me to be an oracle, wave a magic wand, sprinkle some slow, sparkly dust on them, to make everything all right. — Carl Honore

Once you're a public figure, there's a certain amount of privacy you do give up. — Jay Roach

Apparently, the prerequisite to being a gay public figure is to appear on the cover of a magazine with the caption 'I am gay'. I apologize for not doing so if this is what was expected! — Jonathan Knight

Ever since I was 15, I've tried to act and talk as if I was a public figure because I was sure that I would be one day and wanted to be prepared. — Palmer Luckey

If someone uses the amount of time I spend in the public eye as criteria for what my music could possibly mean to them, they probably should take a long, hard look in the mirror and figure out why they need to think they're so special. Because I don't think anybody is that special. — Jeff Tweedy

As an artist, I used to think that my responsibility was to do good work. But I had to learn from the '70s on that being a public figure presents another aspect of responsibility. — Patti Smith

The public life of every political figure is a continual struggle to rescue an element of choice from the pressure of circumstance. — Henry A. Kissinger

I went from being a senator, a young senator, to being considered for vice president, running for president, being a vice presidential candidate, and becoming a national public figure. All of which fed a self-focus, an egotism, a narcissism that leads you to believe that you can do whatever you want. — John Edwards

For me her image, the triptych, became a study of the weight the black male figure carries, given the fact that they are targeted by the police, and are constantly in danger of being misread in public spaces. — Claudia Rankine

I've dated attractive people and I don't find a correlation between amorous enthusiasm and beauty and public figure status. — Moby

A poet is not a public figure. A poet should be read and not seen. — Cecil Day-Lewis

To do exciting, empowering research and leave it in academic journals and university libraries is like manufacturing unaffordable medicines for deadly diseases. We need to share our work in ways that people can assimilate, not in the private languages and forms of scholars...Those who are hungriest for what we dig up don't read scholarly journals and shouldn't have to. As historians we need to either be artists and community educations or find people who are and figure out how to collaborate with them. We can work with community groups to create original public history projects that really involved people. We can see to it that our work gets into at least the local popular culture through theater, murals, historical novels, posters, films, children's books, or a hundred other art forms. We can work with elementary and high school teachers to create curricula. Medicinal history is a form of healing and its purposes are conscious and overt. — Aurora Levins Morales

There's a responsibility level that comes along with being a public figure. I can use this for really cool things. That really [allows] me to be very honest about my experiences. — Tyler Blackburn

I won a Marshall scholarship to read philosophy at Oxford, and what I most wanted to do was strengthen public intellectual culture - I'd write books and essays to help us figure out who we wanted to be. — Reid Hoffman

A man does not automatically become a public figure because he happens to build an empire out of chicken fat. — James Pinckney Miller

Very few people ever meet celebrities. All we really know is what we read about them and the most memorable lines are jokes. That's how we tend to define what we think of a public figure. — Robert Orben

Most of us who got into film industry in early 2000s weren't prepared for the constant vigilance that being a celebrity requires, and there's no school for learning how to handle it well or gracefully. It's a hard thing to figure out. A lot of people don't deal with it well because they're either too paranoid or they're doing things they probably shouldn't be doing in public. — Megan Fox

Academics have spent too much time trying to explain objectification, considering that there's an easy way to make white, Western men understand: You just have to go out in public somewhere poor. You become a thing. Your conscious and unique self becomes irrelevant, as a thousand eyes try to figure out how to best tap your wealth. And objectification begets objectification. The harassers become an undifferentiated mass themselves, made up of identical things that torment. — Elisabeth Eaves

A smirk curved its sensual lips. "But then, women never have been able to keep their eyes off me."
"Oh, you are so arrogant. I just couldn't figure out if you were a fairy or not," Gabby snapped.
A dark eyebrow arched. "And you thought the answer to that question might be found in my pants? That's why you were looking there?" Its dark gaze shimmered with amusement.
"The only reason I looked there," she said, flushing, "was because I couldn't believe you would just so blatantly ... re-rearrange your - your ... " She trailed off, then hissed, "What is it with men? Women don't do things like that! Move their ... their personal parts about in public."
"Mores the pity. I, for one, would find it quite fascinating".Its gaze dropped to her breasts. — Karen Marie Moning

It will kill four times as many Americans as AIDS will over the next decade. I feel that what ever kind of disability God has given me, as an entertainer and as a public figure, it is so I can be a representative for others. — Naomi Judd

I attended public school in Houston. I took piano lessons for several years, and in high school, I played trombone in the marching band. I remember especially enjoying two seasonal activities: ice skating with the Houston Figure Skating Club in the winter and visiting an aunt and uncle's farm in West Texas in the summer. — Robert Woodrow Wilson

I always knew that I would be some type of public figure, but I never knew that it would be rapping. — Freddie Gibbs

The real issue for the public is to figure out which narrative do we want. We can have a bigger government, if that's the public's choice. It'll just require higher taxes on every American. Do you want that, or do you want smaller government, smaller taxes? — Glenn Hubbard

Before this DJ thing, I was hopelessly taking things apart to try to figure out how they worked. I'd go mess around with burned-out cars, with my mom's stereo - I was public enemy #1 in my house for that. So my mom noticed that I was interested in this and decided to send me to school so I'd know what I was doing. — Grandmaster Flash

When you are public figure, you're an athlete or actor, that is your job to speak out on certain things. I think you speak out on what you desire to speak out on or your passionate about. — Benjamin Watson

I do think, even though you are a public figure, I do think you should be entitled to your privacy, and I do think that there are things that go on in relationships and behind closed doors that are completely private. — Tamara Ecclestone

The reporters who came to the press conference in the
office of the John Galt Line were young men who had
been trained to think that their job consisted of
concealing from the world the nature of its events.
It was their daily duty to serve as audience for some
public figure who made utterances about the public good,
in phrases carefully chosen to convey no meaning.
It was their daily job to sling words together in any
combination they pleased, so long as the words did not
fall into a sequence saying something specific.
They could not understand the interview now being
given to them. — Ayn Rand

I don't really have a comprehension of being a public figure. — John Malkovich

I definitely think there is a shift happening right now in terms of visibility, but there's still a choice you make as a public figure on what to do or how to present your sexuality. — Evan Rachel Wood

Figure out what you are meant to contribute to the world and make sure you contribute it. If this requires public speaking or networking or other activities that make you uncomfortable, do them anyway. But accept that they're difficult, get the training you need to make them easier, and reward yourself when you're done. — Susan Cain

If I were not a public figure, I wouldn't fly with Thai. — Thaksin Shinawatra

Although I am a public figure, I'm still a little shy. I don't think my own personality is important. I prefer to keep some small dosage of privacy. — Joshua Lederberg

It is asked whether, in fact, the leader makes propaganda, or whether propaganda makes the leader. There is a widespread impression that a good press agent can puff up a nobody into a great man.
The answer is the same as that made to the old query as to whether the newspaper makes public opinion or whether public opinion makes the newspaper. There has to be fertile ground for the leader and the idea to fall on. But the leader also has to have some vital seed to sow. To use another figure, a mutual need has to exist before either can become positively effective. Propaganda is of no use to the politician unless he has something to say which the public, consciously or unconsciously, wants to hear. — Edward L. Bernays

I think we need one recognized, respected public figure to make a tough, blunt statement on just what Reagan's record is and what he might do to the country, let alone the Republican Party before Christmas. — Robert Teeter

There are a lot of public figures who, before they take a stand on a issue, they talk about it with their publicist and they figure out how it's going to affect record sales. Life is really too short to worry about that sort of thing. — Moby

Becoming a public figure gave me a platform to help people. — Simon Weston

In the way that scepticism is sometimes applied to issues of public concern, there is a tendency to belittle, to condescend, to ignore the fact that, deluded or not, supporters of superstition and pseudoscience are human beings with real feelings, who, like the sceptics, are trying to figure out how the world works and what our role in it might be. Their motives are in many cases consonant with science. If their culture has not given them all the tools they need to pursue this great quest, let us temper our criticism with kindness. None of us comes fully equipped. — Carl Sagan

Looking back, I can genuinely say that I am truly grateful that my parents sheltered us from the public eye. This may sound like an easy task, but it was probably the hardest thing they had to figure out as parents - how to give their kids a normal childhood even though they were always in the spotlight. — Katherine Schwarzenegger

I always knew I was going to be a public figure. There was no doubt. — Shakira

We chose the most interesting image available to us to illustrate the theme of the cover, which is what we always try to do. We apply the same test to photographs of any public figure, male or female: does the image convey what we are saying? That is a gender-neutral standard. — Jon Meacham

My father was a public figure all my life, and so the presidency was an extension of that. I guess you get used to it, though you can stand back occasionally and think, 'Boy, this is really weird!' — Ron Reagan

I just have to remind myself that my daily quotidie in life has almost nothing to do with any aspect of my professional life as a public figure. — Moby

I think that the most important reason to come out is your own sanity; that's above everything else. I think that applies whether you're a public figure or not. The closet is a terrible place to be for the person who's in it. — Christopher Rice

The development of an image is a mysterious thing: once a public figure has been cast in a public role, it is almost impossible for him to change the character. It is as if someone has assembled personality traits into a convenient pattern, no writer ever re-examines it: it is easier to use the accepted pattern. — Theodore H. White

I don't much like being a public figure, because so often how people appear is not how they really are, and I think one of the issues about our society is that we make judgments about people on the basis of very flimsy evidence. — Robert Winston

I think that you sign a sort of unwritten contract when you become a public figure, when you become an actor, that you're sacrificing a certain amount of privacy and parts of your life change. — Olivia Wilde

I may be a public figure, but really, I'm just like a guy who could be in your family and have some difficult things happen to him. — Terrell Owens

I used to enjoy the anonymity of being a literary figure and occasionally a public radio figure. — John Hodgman

When you become a public figure, you still think, 'That's really not me; there's more to me than that.' — Edward Said

The bestseller charts, a sure indicator of public taste, tell us with relentless frequency that Marian Keyes or Jeffrey Archer is a better author, by some dizzying six-figure sum, both in numbers of copies and money, than, say, J. M. Coetzee or Patrick White. Are they right? — Neel Mukherjee

So far as I am aware no leader of a party of the European left in the past twenty-five years has declared capitalism as such to be unacceptable as a system. The only public figure to do so unhesitatingly was Pope John Paul II. — Eric Hobsbawm

If you had been a public figure from the time you were a toddler, if you'd had to fight for a life that felt real and honest and normal against all odds, than maybe to you might value privacy above all else. I have given everything up there from the time that I was three-years old. That's reality show enough, don't you think? — Jodie Foster

Before he had time to figure it out, his walkie-talkie crackled and a voice came on. He punched a button. "Sheriff here. What's up?"
"Someone called about a public disturbance behind schmitty's bar," a woman's voice reported. "Cathy use the proper code number," Billy growled. "There ain't no number for a guy acting like a cockroach!" the woman yelled. "he climbed into their Dumpster and he's wallowing in the trash. — Kerrelyn Sparks

The thing I can't figure out is why I have an undeniable compulsion to clean public spaces, airplane bathrooms, restaurant flatware, hotel gyms and Chapstick containers ... yet I have no desire to make my own bed. Ever. Seriously, who made me, and where am I from? — Rachel Nichols

The strange thing is, no matter what, when you become some kind of public figure, you have your go-to answers for all scenarios and instances. — Jack Osbourne

In Milly Barranger, Margaret Webster has found the perfect biographer. In Margaret Webster, Milly Barranger has found her perfect subject. She brings to vivid life a fascinating and important theater figure whose public and private lives were of equal interest. In this carefully researched book, Webster's colleagues, lovers, and friends shine as brightly as she did. I wish she were here to read it. — Marian Seldes

I wasn't interested at all in doing a documentary. I was not a public figure. — Iris Apfel

I won't complain about touring, because I really do believe that a public-figure musician complaining about being a public-figure musician is just absurd. Like, 'Boo hoo hoo! I have to stand on stage and people pay attention to me!' — Moby

We've got to figure out a way that we give a private sphere for our public leaders. We're not gonna get the best people in public life if we don't do that. — Doris Kearns Goodwin

This not a criticism of [Mitt] Romney; please don't anybody call him up and say I'm ripping him. I'm not. I'm simply telling you that the connection [Donald] Trump has with his supporters, slash, audience, is unique. Not everybody politician has it, and certainly not every public figure has such a connection with their audience. — Rush Limbaugh

I'm looking forward to being able to retire from being a public figure and being able to afford to be myself! — James Taylor

This is crazier and louder than I was prepared for. With every week, the fervour and anticipation seem to grow. People know my name and ambush me in public and try to figure out what hotel I'm staying at and ask me to bite them and want to touch my hair. — Robert Pattinson

The crowd had stared at him and given up angrily, finding no satisfaction. He did not look crushed and he did not look defiant. He looked impersonal and calm. He was not like a public figure in a public place; he was like a man alone in his own room, listening to the radio. — Ayn Rand

If you're a public figure, people have the right to speculate and gossip. — Katrina Kaif