Public Opinion Quotes - Page 11

• According to the experience of all but the most accomplished jugglers, it is easier to keep one ball in the air than many.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Air, Balls, Easier

  John Kenneth Galbraith (2015). “The New Industrial State”, p.493, Princeton University Press

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• About things on which the public thinks long it commonly attains to think right.

  Samuel Johnson

  Thinking, Long, Opinion

  'The Lives of the English Poets' (1779-81) 'Addison'

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• No man on earth is truly free, All are slaves of money or necessity. Public opinion or fear of prosecution forces each one, against his conscience, to conform.

  Euripides

  Men, Earth, Conformity

  Euripides (1958). “Euripides: Hecuba, translated by W. Arrowsmith. Andromache, translated by J. F. Nims. The Trojan women, translated by R. Lattimore. Ion, translated by R. F. Willetts”

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• One might almost reckon mathematically that, having undergone the double composition of public opinion and of the author, their history reaches us at third hand and is thus separated by two stages from the original fact.

  Alfred de Vigny

  Hands, Two, Might

  Alfred de Vigny (1923). “Cinq Mars”

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• They've (Israel) lost the battle for public opinion. They claim it's because American Jews know too little.. I claim it's because they know too much about the conflict, and young liberal Jews have difficulty defending the use of cluster bombs in Lebanon or supporting the Israeli settlements.

  Norman Finkelstein

  Knowledge, Israel, Battle

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• Any court which undertakes by its legal processes to enforce civil liberties needs the support of an enlightened and vigorous public opinion which will be intelligent and discriminating as to what cases really are civil liberties cases and what questions really are involved in those cases.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Intelligent, Support, Liberty

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• The line of least resistance in the progress of civilization is to make that theoretical postulate real by the continually increasing force of the world's public opinion.

  Elihu Root

  Real, Civilization, Progress

  Elihu Root (1916). “Addresses on International Subjects”

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• I've seen public opinion shift like the wind and put out the very fire it lighted.

  Rachel Field

  Fire, Wind, Opinion

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• While it's very hard to know exactly how to measure public opinion there, because there's no really good polling, the fact of the matter is, in all of the polls I've seen, the vast majority of the Iraqis prefer to be free and are pleased that the coalition freed them.

  Paul Bremer

  Matter, Facts, Majority

  "Face The Nation" with Bob Schieffer, www.cbsnews.com. July 21, 2003.

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• Rhetoric, which is the use of language to inform or persuade, is very important in shaping public opinion. We are very easily fooled by language and how it is used by others.

  Ray Comfort

  Important, Use, Language

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• Without meaning, without substance, without aim: a mere 'public opinion'.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Culture, Substance, Aim

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2009). “Basic Writings of Nietzsche”, p.732, Modern Library

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• But on the big things, I'm not going to trim in order to win public opinion. Because I really don't want to serve in the Senate if I arrive there without permission to do the things I think need to be done.

  Bob Kerrey

  Thinking, Winning, Order

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• Putin and his advisers don't understand the power of public opinion in the West. They believe in conspiracy theories and that someone is orchestrating a malicious campaign against Russia. They don't realize that even conservative politicians have to react when newspapers and artists express their concern on such an issue.

  Alexei Navalny

  Believe, Artist, Issues

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• Public-opinion polls show that Americans split about evenly on civil unions. But when the words 'gay marriage' are presented, they break 3-to-1 against it.

  Dick Morris

  Gay, Unions, Splits

  "Bush's Weapon Against Dean" by Dick Morris, www.foxnews.com. November 5, 2003.

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• If the freedom of religion, guaranteed to us by law in theory, can ever rise in practice under the overbearing inquisition of public opinion, [then and only then will truth]prevail over fanaticism.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Law, Practice, Freedom Of Religion

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• I've learned the importance of changing people's minds at the grassroots level so that whoever does run will have a much better chance of encountering public opinion that reaches a critical mass and brings about a change not only in White House policies but in the Congress and in the state legislatures and all around the world.

  Al Gore

  Running, White, People

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• I know where there is more wisdom than is found in Napoleon, Voltaire, or all the ministers present and to come - in public opinion.

  Charles Maurice de Talleyrand

  Ministers, Found, Knows

  Sain in the Chamber of Peers in 1821. "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations", p. 570, 1922.

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• The pressure of public opinion is like the pressure of the atmosphere; you can't see it - but all the same, it is sixteen pounds to the square inch.

  James Russell Lowell

  Squares, Atmosphere, Sixteen

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• The Soviet Union's propaganda clearly wishes to use public opinion in this country to get the West to reduce its own arms while doing nothing themselves. In this way they would gain nuclear superiority. This is simply not on.

  James Callaghan

  Country, Wish, Use

  James Callaghan's speech at Cardiff (May 25, 1983), as quoted in "Callaghan defends deterrent" by Tim Jones in The Times (p. 1), May 26, 1983.

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• To spread healthy ideas among even the lowest classes of people, to remove men from the influence of prejudice and passion, to make reason the arbiter and supreme guide of public opinion; that is the essential goal of the sciences; that is how science will contribute to the advancement of civilization, and that is what deserves protection of governments who want to insure the stability of their power.

  Georges Cuvier

  Passion, Men, Civilization

  "Rapport historique sur les progrès des sciences naturelles depuis 1789, et sur leur état actuel". Book edited by Georges Cuvier (translated), 1810.

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• Although objectively greater demands are placed on this authority, it operates less as a public opinion giving a rational foundation to the exercise of political and social authority, the more it is generated for the purpose of an abstract vote that amounts to no more than an act of acclamation within a public sphere temporarily manufactured for show or manipulation.

  Jurgen Habermas

  Exercise, Giving, Political

  "The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere". Book by Jürgen Habermas, 1962.

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• To try to regulate the internal affairs of a family, the relations of love or friendship, or many other things of the same sort, by law or by the coercion of public opinion, is like trying to pull an eyelash out of a man's eye with a pair of tongs. They may put out the eye, but they will never get hold of the eyelash

  James Fitzjames Stephen

  Eye, Men, Law

  Sir James Fitzjames Stephen (1874). “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”, p.177

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• We set up government by consent of the governed, and the Bill of Rights denies those in power any legal opportunity to coerce that consent. Authority here is to be controlled by public opinion, not public opinion by authority.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Opportunity, Rights, Government

  "West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette 319 U.S. 641". Judicial opinion, 1943.

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• What is public opinion? It is private indolence.

  Georg Brandes

  Opinion, Indolence

  Georg Brandes (2015). “Friedrich Nietzsche (English Edition)”, p.5, WILLIAM HEINEMANN

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• Active liberty is particularly at risk when law restricts speech directly related to the shaping of public opinion, for example, speech that takes place in areas related to politics and policy-making by elected officials. That special risk justifies especially strong pro-speech judicial presumptions. It also justifies careful review whenever the speech in question seeks to shape public opinion, particularly if that opinion in turn will affect the political process and the kind of society in which we live.

  Stephen Breyer

  Strong, Policy Making, Law

  "Active Liberty: Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution". Book by Stephen Breyer, 2008.

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