Small men, seeking great wealth or power, have too often and too long turned even the highest levels of public service into mere personal opportunity.
Interpretation
The pursuit of personal gain often corrupts the integrity of public service.
In this quote, Barry Goldwater criticizes individuals who, despite holding significant positions in public service, prioritize their personal ambitions over their civic responsibilities. He suggests that such tendencies distort the true purpose of serving the public and reduce honorable roles to platforms for self-enrichment.
In practice
During a speech about honesty in government, this quote highlights the dangers of self-serving politicians.
I say further that for this great legislative body to ignore the Constitution and the fundamental concepts of our governmental system is to act in a manner which could ultimately destroy the freedom of all American citizens, including the freedoms of the very persons whose feelings and whose liberties are the major subject of this legislation.
The conservative movement, to which I subscribe, has as one of its basic tenets the belief that government should stay out of people’s private lives. Government governs best when it governs least – and stays out of the impossible task of legislating morality. But legislating someone’s version of morality is exactly what we do by perpetuating discrimination against gays.
Religious factions will go on imposing their will on others unless the decent people connected to them recognize that religion has no place in public policy. They must learn to make their views known without trying to make their views the only alternatives.
None of us here in Washington knows all or even half of the answers ... If you love your country, don't depend on handouts from Washington for your information. If you cherish your freedom, don't leave it all up to big government.
A woman has a right to an abortion. That's a decision that's up to the pregnant woman, not up to the pope or some do-gooders or the Religious Right.
The great decisions of government cannot be dictated by the concerns of religious factions. We have succeeded for 205 years in keeping the affairs of state separate from the uncompromising idealism of religious groups and we mustn't stop now. To retreat from that separation would violate the principles of conservatism and the values upon which the framers built this democratic republic.
The people who cast the votes don't decide an election, the people who count the votes do.
When Rumsfeld gets up on television and says we have definitive intelligence that al Qaeda is working with Iraq, how is an ordinary citizen supposed to react? They won't tell you the evidence, and when anyone asks, they say, 'Well, you know: It's secret.'
One of the necessary accompaniments of capitalism in a democracy is political corruption.
In the United States large corporations control some members of Congress. All this does is delay the corporation’s funeral at our expense.
Few businessmen are capable of being in politics, they don't understand the democratic process, they have neither the tolerance or the depth it takes. Democracy isn't a business.
It is the desire of the good people of the whole country that sectionalism as a factor in our politics should disappear.
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