Popular Opinion Quotes

• A wise man makes his own decisions, an ignorant man follows the public opinion.

  Grantland Rice

  Confidence, Wise, Wisdom

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• Popular opinion is the greatest lie in the world.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Lying, World, Recognition

  "Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II". Book by Thomas Fuller, 1727.

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• Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.

  Jack Kerouac

  Inspirational, Life, Beautiful

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• And it is long since I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Long, Opinion, I Have Learned

  Alexander Hamilton (1851). “The Works of Alexander Hamilton: Cabinet papers [contin.] 1794-1795. [Miscellanies, 1794-1795] Military papers. 1798-1800. Correspondence [contin.] 1789-1795”, p.52

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• Are right and wrong convertible terms, dependant upon popular opinion?

  William Lloyd Garrison

  Truth, Integrity, Character

  William Lloyd Garrison (1832). “Thoughts on African Colonization: Or an Impartial Exhibition of the Doctrines, Principles and Purposes of the American Colonization Society. Together with the Resolutions, Addresses and Remonstrances of the Free People of Color”, p.6

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• It is impossible to stand upright when one plants his roots in the shifting sands of popular opinion and approval.

  Thomas S. Monson

  Roots, Shifting, Approval

  Twitter post from Nov 21, 2014

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• Public opinion in this country is everything.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Country, Government, Political

  Abraham Lincoln (1989). “Abraham Lincoln: Speeches & Writings Part 2: 1859-1865: Library of America #46”, p.57, Library of America

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• In every age there has been a stream of popular opinion that has carried all before it, and given a family character, as it were, to the century.

  Mary Wollstonecraft

  Character, Age, Popular Song

  Mary Wollstonecraft (2015). “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman”, p.29, Booklassic

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• I don't hold myself dictated to by what everyone is saying, by the tabloids or popular opinion. I don't like bourgeois values. I say you find your own way to live.

  James Salter

  Way To Live, Tabloids, Opinion

  "James Salter: The Greatest Writer You've Never Read" by Alex Bilmes, www.esquire.com. June 21, 2015.

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• Public opinion is the thermometer a monarch should constantly consult.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Power, Public Opinion, Politics

  Napoleon Bonaparte “Napoleon in his own words from the French of Jules Bertaut”, Рипол Классик

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• No written law has ever been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.

  Carrie Chapman Catt

  Women, Law, Political

  65 Copy quote

• Contrary to popular opinion, the hustle is not a new dance step - it is an old business procedure.

  Fran Lebowitz

  Dance, Hustle, Literature

  32 Copy quote

• The left has lost touch with popular opinion, thereby making it possible for the right to present itself as the party of common sense.

  Christopher Lasch

  Party, Common Sense, Lost Friendship

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• There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion.

  Winston Churchill

  Life, Motivational, Public Opinion

  89 Copy quote

• Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Motivational, Success, Wisdom

  Abraham Lincoln (2009). “The Portable Abraham Lincoln”, p.143, Penguin

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• There's no right. There's no wrong. There's only popular opinion.

  Brad Pitt

  Wisdom, Monkeys, Opinion

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• Popular opinions, on subjects not palpable to sense, are often true, but seldom or never the whole truth.

  John Stuart Mill

  Truth, Halloween, Opinion

  John Stuart Mill (2015). “On Liberty, Utilitarianism and Other Essays”, p.45, OUP Oxford

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• In Iraq #1 we stayed within U.N. mandates, limited our response, went home after Kuwait was freed - and were censured for allowing Shiites and Kurds to be butchered and not going to Baghdad when the road was open and the dictator tottering. In Iraq #2 we removed the tyrant at less cost than the liberation of Kuwait during the earlier war, stayed on to ensure freedom and fair representation for various groups - and are being castigated for either using too little force to ensure needed order or too much power that stifles indigenous aspirations and turns popular opinion against us.

  Victor Davis Hanson

  War, Home, Kuwait

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• The sand in the hourglass runs from one compartment to the other, marking the passage of moments with something constant and tangible.If you watch the flowing sand, you might see time itself riding the granules.Contrary to popular opinion, time is not an old white-haired man, but a laughing child.And time sings.

  Vera Nazarian

  Running, Children, Men

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• Blessed, plainly, is that life which is not valued at the estimation of outsiders, but is known, as judge of itself, by its own inner feelings. It needs no popular opinions as its reward in any way; nor has it any fear of punishments. Thus the less it strives for glory, the more it rises above it. For to those who seek for glory, that reward in the shape of present things is but a shadow of future ones, and is a hindrance to eternal life, as it is written in the Scriptures: 'Truly I say to you, they have received their reward'

  Ambrose

  Christian, Blessed, Punishment

  St. Ambrose (2012). “The Sacred Writings of Saint Ambrose (Annotated Edition)”, p.131, Jazzybee Verlag

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• Some of our problems can no more be solved correctly by majority opinion than can a problem in arithmetic and there are few problems that cannot be solved according to what is just and right without resort to popular opinion.

  Henry Latham Doherty

  Justice, Majority, Opinion

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• I know how easy it is for some minds to glide along with the current of popular opinion, where influence, respectability, and all those motives which tend to seduce the human heart are brought to bear.

  Benjamin F. Wade

  Heart, Mind, Bears

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• It is not always easy to diagnose. The simplest form of stupidity - the mumbling, nose-picking, stolid incomprehension - can be detected by anyone. But the stupidity which disguises itself as thought, and which talks so glibly and eloquently, indeed never stops talking, in every walk of life is not so easy to identify, because it marches under a formidable name, which few dare attack. It is called Popular Opinion.

  Robertson Davies

  Talking, Names, Stupidity

  Robertson Davies (1996). “The Merry Heart: Selections 1980-1995”

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• Meditation on any theme, if positive and honest, inevitably separates him who does the meditating from the opinion prevailing around him, from that which can be called "public" or "popular" opinion.

  Jose Ortega y Gasset

  Meditation, Doe, Opinion

  "What is Philosophy?". Book by José Ortega y Gasset, p. 15, 1964.

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• Contrary to popular opinion, 'Leave it to Beaver' was not a documentary.

  Stephanie Coontz

  Documentaries, Opinion, Beavers

  Stephanie Coontz (2016). “The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap”, p.35, Basic Books

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