Public Opinion Quotes - Page 4

• Public opinion shapes our destinies and guides the progress of human affairs.

  Frank B. Kellogg

  Destiny, Progress, Shapes

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• We were very effective, and I was very effective, in shaping public opinion around my campaigns. But there were big stretches, while governing, where even though we were doing the right thing, we weren't able to mobilize public opinion firmly enough behind us to weaken the resolve of the Republicans to stop opposing us or to cooperate with us. And there were times during my presidency where I lost the PR battle.

  Barack Obama

  Battle, Campaigns, Able

  Source: www.cbsnews.com

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• Public opinion reigns in society because stupidity reigns amongst the stupid.

  Nicolas Chamfort

  Stupid, Reign, Stupidity

  "Chamfort: Reflections on Life, Love & Society: Together with Anecdotes and Little Philosophical Dialogues".

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• The two terrors that discourage creativity and creative living are fear of public opinion and undue reverence for one's own consistency.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Creativity, Two, Creative

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• We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking. And out of it we get an aggregation which we consider a boon. Its name is public opinion. It is held in reverence. Some think it the voice of God.

  Mark Twain

  Mistake, Thinking, Names

  Mark Twain (1994). “Tales, Speeches, Essays, and Sketches”, p.272, Penguin

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• I believe that the position of the friends of peace is strengthening. The friends of peace are able to work in the open. They base themselves upon the force of public opinion. They have at their disposal such instruments as, for instance, the League of Nations. This is to the advantage of the friends of peace.

  Joseph Stalin

  Believe, League, Able

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• Laws that do not embody public opinion can never be enforced.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Law, Opinion

  Elbert Hubbard, Bert Hubbard (1923). “Selected writings of Elbert Hubbard: his mintage of wisdom, coined from a life of love, laughter and work”

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• I think that the legitimacy of the court would be undermined in any case if the court made a decision based on its perception of public opinion.

  Samuel Alito

  Thinking, Decision, Perception

  U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Judge Samuel Alito's Nomination to the Supreme Court, www.washingtonpost.com. January 10, 2006.

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• Leaders are responsible not for running public opinion polls but for the consequences of their actions.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Running, Romance, Leader

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• Public opinion is a second conscience.

  William Rounseville Alger

  Second Chance, Opinion, Conscience

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• Mob law is the most forcible expression of an abnormal public opinion; it shows that society is rotten to the core.

  Timothy Thomas Fortune

  Expression, Law, Rotten

  Timothy Thomas Fortune, Seth Moglen (2007). “Black and White: Land, Labor, and Politics in the South”, Simon and Schuster

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• Sycophancy toward those who hold power is a fact in every regime, and especially in a democracy, where, unlike tyranny, there is an accepted principle of legitimacy that breaks the inner will to resist.... Flattery of the people and incapacity to resist public opinion are the democratic vices, particularly among writers, artists, journalists and anyone else who is dependent on an audience.

  Allan Bloom

  Artist, People, Democracy

  Allan Bloom (2008). “Closing of the American Mind”, p.249, Simon and Schuster

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• The people have only a very vague direct power. They have the power of voting against the administration, again after its decisions have been taken; but they have no way of getting into the question of policy-making, decision-making, except insofar as the vague forces and pressures of public debate and public opinion have their impact on the President. The President still has to decide. He can't go to the people and ask them to decide for him; he has to make the decision. In that sense he was condemned to be a dictator.

  Walter Millis

  Taken, Impact, Policy Making

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• The power of an aroused public is unbeatable.

  Helen Caldicott

  Inspirational, Unbeatable, Enviromental

  Helen Caldicott, Nancy Herrington, Nahum Stiskin (1982). “Nuclear madness: what you can do! : with a new chapter on Three Mile Island”, Bantam

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• To straddle the middle ground and win elections, we have to be in charge of the political agenda. This can only be done by not being beaten in the argument with our critics. They complain that I come down too hard on their arguments. But wrong ideas have to be challenged before they influence public opinion and make for problems. Those who try to be clever at the expense of the government should not complain if my replies are as sharp as their criticisms.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Clever, Winning, Government

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• The revolutionary despises public opinion. He despises and hates the existing social morality in all its manifestations. For him, morality is everything which contributes to the triumph of the revolution. Immoral and criminal is everything that stands in its way.

  Sergey Nechayev

  Hate, Triumph, Criminals

  "The Revolutionary Catechism" by Sergey Nechayev, www.marxists.org. 1869.

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• Experience having long taught me the reasonableness of mutual sacrifices of opinion among those who are to act together for any common object, and the expediency of doing what good we can; when we cannot do all we would wish.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Sacrifice, Long, Wish

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, correspondence, and miscellanies from the papers of T. Jefferson”

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• Let experience, the least fallible guide of human opinion, be appealed to for an answer to these inquiries.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Inquiry, Answers, Guides

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Quentin P. Taylor, John Jay (1998). “The Essential Federalist: A New Reading of the Federalist Papers”, p.56, Rowman & Littlefield

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• Those who have a tolerable knowledge of human nature will not stand in need of such lights.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Light, Needs, Human Nature

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1842). “The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788”, p.25

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• There was a time when we were told . . . that a sense of common interest would preside over the conduct of the respective members...This language at the present day would appear as wild as that great part of what we now hear from the same quarter will be thought, when we shall have received further lessons from that best oracle of wisdom, experience.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Wisdom Experience, Oracles, Lessons

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• Hitherto my observations have only aimed at a vindication of the provision in question, on the ground of theoretic propriety . . . . But there remains to be mentioned a positive advantage . . . I allude to the circumstance of uniformity in the time of elections for the House of Representatives. It is more than possible, that this uniformity may be found by experience to be of great importance to the public welfare; both as a security against the perpetuation of the same spirit in the body; and as a cure for the diseases of faction.

  Alexander Hamilton

  House, Body, May

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• A woman who does not know herself has no choice other than to live with other people’s evaluations. But no one can adapt perfectly to public opinion. And herein lies the source of their destruction.

  Natsuo Kirino

  Lying, People, Choices

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• President Wilson says a leader must treat public opinion the way a sailor deals with the wind, using it to blow the ship in one direction or another, but never trying to go directly against it.

  Ken Follett

  Blow, One Direction, Wind

  Ken Follett (2011). “Fall of Giants: Book One of the Century Trilogy”, p.347, Penguin

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• Due to the fact that I experienced personally the situation of a political prisoner, I have an historical commitment to all those that were or are prisoners just because they expressed their views, their public opinion, their own opinions.

  Dilma Rousseff

  Commitment, Views, Political

  "Dilma Rousseff: can Brazil's fighter survive the turmoil?" by Jonathan Watts and Bruce Douglas, www.theguardian.com. August 22, 2015.

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• When men exercise their reason coolly and freely, on a variety of distinct questions, they inevitably fall into different opinions, on some of them. When they are governed by a common passion, their opinions if they are so to be called, will be the same.

  James Madison

  Fall, Passion, Exercise

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1842). “The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788”, p.237

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