Civil Service Quotes

1. "To those who fought World War II, it was plain enough that Allied bombs were killing huge numbers of German civilians, that Churchill was fighting to preserve imperialism as well as democracy, and that the bulk of the dying in Europe was being done by the Red Army at the service of Stalin. It is only in retrospect that we begin to simplify experience into myth — because we need stories to live by, because we want to honor our ancestors and our country instead of doubting them. In this way, a necessary but terrible war is simplified into a "good war," and we start to feel shy or guilty at any reminder of the moral compromises and outright betrayals that are inseparable from every combat. The best history writing reverses this process, restoring complexity to our sense of the past."
Author: Adam Kirsch

2. "These latter institutions [the civil service, trade unions, media of all kinds], notably of course television, but more subtly the written press, are quite spectacular powers of unreason and ignorance."
Author: Alain Badiou

3. "I urge the enactment of a civil service law so explicit and so strong that no partisan official will dare evade it, basing all rewards, promotions and salaries solely on merit, on loyalty and industry in the public service."
Author: Arthur Capper

4. "As long as we have a healthy baby, I don't care what sex it is." He let his gaze run down to her waistline. "But I meant what I said about getting married soon," he added quietly. "I don't care for casual modern arrangements when a child is involved, although I'd want to marry you now even if there could never be a child. Our son deserves a family name and two parents to raise him and love him. As we've already agreed, I never considered preventing him." He grinned wickedly. "And I'm not sorry, either.""Neither am I. Okay," she said, smiling. "We'll get married whenever you want."He sighed with relief, glad that she wasn't going to fight him about it. "I'll speak to the priest here in D.C. who married my parents, if you'd like that. We could have a civil service…""No," she said at once. "I'd like us to be married in church."He smiled. "Fine. And the sooner the better," he added with an amused smile, glancing once more, with unmistakable pride and delight, toward her waistline."
Author: Diana Palmer

5. "In 1925, when Britain went back to the gold standard, that was supported by the Conservative Party, the Labour Party, the Bank of England, the civil service, the CBI, the TUC, the Times, the Economist; that consensus was very strong."
Author: Ed Balls

6. "It is our job to work for the government of the day and so that means working for Gordon Brown as Prime Minister, and we need to do those preparations just to be sure that we're ready for whoever you, the British public, elect and that's core to our civil service values over the last 150 years."
Author: Gus O'Donnell

7. "These fond parents were not blind to the value of education it was that they realized only its external value. That is to say, they could not look beyond the fact that education enabled folk to get on in the world so far as the acquisition of rank, crosses, and money was concerned.Certain evil rumours had arisen regarding the necessity of learning not only one's letters, but also various branches of science which until now had remained unknown to the world of Oblomovka; but, as I say, the good folk of that place had only the dimmest, the remotest, comprehension of any internal demand for education, and therefore desired to secure for their little Ilya only certain showy advantages, and no more--to wit, a fine uniform, and the getting of him into the Civil Service (his mother even foresaw him become a provincial governor!)."
Author: Ivan Goncharov

8. "The civil service can never be placed on a satisfactory basis until it is regulated by law."
Author: James A. Garfield

9. "Taxes are what we pay for civilized society, for modernity, and for prosperity. The wealthy pay more because they have benefitted more. Taxes, well laid and well spent, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, and promote the general welfare. Taxes protect property and the environment; taxes make business possible. Taxes pay for roads and schools and bridges and police and teachers. Taxes pay for doctors and nursing homes and medicine. During an emergency, like an earthquake or a hurricane, taxes pay for rescue workers, shelters, and services. For people whose lives are devastated by other kinds of disaster, like the disaster of poverty, taxes pay, even, for food."
Author: Jill Lepore

10. "Colonial governors and senior civil servants are not easy people to argue with, and I was not popular because of my criticism of the colonial service in Kenya."
Author: Louis Leakey

11. "Though we were all taught to be proud of living in this great parliamentary democracy the civil servants who ran it were a fearsome bunch - a nameless mass of people with jobs (police, social workers, record-keepers, teachers, councilmen) whose sole purpose was to keep everyone shuffling from birth to death in a nice orderly queue. Surely some social-service record had been passed to the local constabulary bearing a huge black question mark beside the name Finn and the scrawled words, " Why isn't this boy in school"
Author: Meg Rosoff

12. "We simply can't drop everything and run away, can we?'A warm wind kicked up, ruffling through his thick, dark hair. Very softly, he said, 'I see. Is this where you preach to me of how English civilization will save the savages?'She hated this, *hated* the way he was suddenly looking at her - as though she were some unfamiliar specimen whose novelty was rapidly losing interest. 'Be fair, sir! All I meant was that we've created a society here. Laws, a justice system, a - postal service ...' The argument sounded weak even to her own ears. 'I simply mean that to leave those things behind would hardly be simple."
Author: Meredith Duran

13. "When I wake up on a Monday morning and I realise I don't have to go and work at the civil service, I really think I've won."
Author: Paul Merton

14. "I don't like the royal family, I don't like the establishment, I don't like the civil service."
Author: Paul Weller

15. "When I came back into show business in '88 after spending 20-odd years in the civil service, it wasn't planned."
Author: Pete Best

16. "I may now add that civilization is a process in the service of Eros, whose purpose is to combine single human individuals, and after that families, then races, peoples and nations, into one great unity, the unity of mankind."
Author: Sigmund Freud

17. "I did not care for the things that most people care about– making money, having a comfortable home, high military or civil rank, and all the other activities, political appointments, secret societies, party organizations, which go on in our city . . . I set myself to do you– each one of you, individually and in private– what I hold to be the greatest possible service. I tried to persuade each one of you to concern himself less with what he has than with what he is, so as to render himself as excellent and as rational as possible."
Author: Socrates

18. "For those who have made the ultimate sacrifice, we are grateful that such men and women were among us. For those who continue to serve, we honor their commitment. For those who return to civilian life, we honor their service."
Author: Steve Buyer

Civil Service Quotes Pictures