Popular Opinion Quotes - Page 2

Worship of society and popular opinion is idolatry.

Swami Vivekananda

Idol Worship, Opinion, Idolatry

Swami Vivekananda (1955). “Complete Works”

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In America, educators punish those who actually think for themselves. There is only acceptance for popular opinion.

Bryant H. McGill

Acceptance, Thinking, America

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Sometimes you need a little courage too just to buck popular opinion.

Herb Kelleher

Needs, Bucks, Littles

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Contrary to popular opinion, Christians are not nice polite people who never get angry with one another. Those are not the virtues of God's people. Our virtues are truth-telling, kindness, forgiveness and yes, even anger-as long as it is the anger that is part of true love-through which we move closer to one another and to the God who has shown us how it is done.

Barbara Brown Taylor

Christian, Kindness, Nice

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What is true has never been a question to be decided by polls or popular opinion. Truth isn’t ‘democratic’—it’s something that God has written into the very fabric of nature.

Charles Colson

Fabric, Opinion, Truth Is

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In sum, the purpose is to contest the popular view, because popular opinions are so frequently found to be untimely, misled (by propaganda), or plainly wrong.

Humphrey B. Neill

Views, Purpose, Opinion

Humphrey Bancroft Neill (1963). “The Art of Contrary Thinking”, p.9, Caxton Press

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Popular opinion is oftenest, what Carlyle pronounced it to be, a lie!

Wendell Phillips

Lying, Opinion, Popularity

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It's painful to listen to the barking of dogs.

Nizar Qabbani

Dog, Opinion, Painful

Nizar Qabbani, “Verse”

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Public opinion should not be confused with popular sentiment. Popular sentiment is what people say to one another around their dinner tables. Popular opinion is what they say to callers from polling organizations.

Richard Brookhiser

Confused, Organization, People

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Contrary to popular opinion, the Constitution was not - and is not - a grant of rights to the citizenry. Instead, the Constitution is a "barbed-wire entanglement" designed to interfere with, restrict, and impede government officials in the exercise of political power.

Jacob G. Hornberger

Exercise, Rights, Government

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It requires ages to destroy a popular opinion.

Voltaire

Age, Opinion

Voltaire (1824). “A Philosophical Dictionary”, p.135

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We have all loved a guy we know has issues. Despite popular opinions, until we give it a final try, the relationship will always be in the 'what if' stage.

Patti Stanger

Issues, Giving, Guy

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[What Hayek] does not see, or will not admit, [is] that a return to "free" competition means for the great mass of people a tyranny probably worse, because more irresponsible, than that of the State. The trouble with competitions is that somebody wins them. Professor Hayek denies that free capitalism necessarily leads to monopoly, but in practice that is where it has led, and since the vast majority of people would far rather have State regimentation than slumps and unemployment, the drift towards collectivism is bound to continue if popular opinion has any say in the matter.

George Orwell

Mean, Winning, Practice

George Orwell (2003). “Orwell: The Observer Years”, Atlantic Books (UK)

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That is what leadership is all about: staking your ground ahead of where opinion is and convincing people, not simply following the popular opinion of the moment.

Doris Kearns Goodwin

Leadership, People, Opinion

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Their preservation depends upon a sentiment. As sentiment never yet annihilated a paying industry, we cannot hope to stay, wholly, the ax and saw of the lumberman. But popular opinion, combined with action, if directed intelligently towards the setting apart of some one section of the noble redwood forests... will, I believe, save for our present delight and for that of the generations who come after us, at least one grand forest of the Sequoia sempervirens such as the world cannot show elsewhere, such as a thousand years cannot reproduce.

Frank Howard Clark

Believe, Years, Generations

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You should not use your fireplace, because scientists now believe that, contrary to popular opinion, fireplaces actually remove heat from houses. Really, that's what scientists believe. In fact many scientists actually use their fireplaces to cool their houses in the summer. If you visit a scientist's house on a sultry August day, you'll find a cheerful fire roaring on the hearth and the scientist sitting nearby, remarking on how cool he is and drinking heavily.

Dave Barry

Summer, Humorous, Drinking

Dave Barry (2001). “All the Dave Barry you could ever want: four classic books in one from America's foremost humorist”

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Make notes—I’ve lost more material than I’ve ever written. Contrary to popular opinion, it’s not still up there in one’s brain. It’s in outer space and it ain’t coming back.

Judith Guest

Writing, Space, Brain

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We're in such a volatile climate right now politically. I think they didn't want Assassins to not succeed due to popular opinion and politics, versus on its own merits. I can respect that.

Neil Patrick Harris

Thinking, Climate, Assassins

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Contrary to popular opinion, things don't go stale particularly fast in the art world.

Jerry Saltz

Art, World, Opinion

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Definitions, contrary to popular opinion, tell us nothing about things. They only describe people's linguistic habits; that is, they tell us what noises people make under what conditions.

S. I. Hayakawa

People, Definitions, Noise

S. I. HAYAKAWA (1941). “LANGUAGE IN ACTION”

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Contrary to popular opinion, the most important characteristic of a godly mother is not her relationship with her children. It is her love for her husband. The love between husband and wife is the real key to a thriving family. A healthy home environment cannot be built exclusively on the parents' love for their children. The properly situated family has marriage at the center; families shouldn't revolve around the children.

John F. MacArthur

Mother, Children, Husband

John F. MacArthur (2006). “Twelve Extraordinary Women Workbook”, p.70, Thomas Nelson Inc

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Despite popular opinion, there are no important parallels between Madonna and Monroe, who was a virtuoso comedienne but who was in secure, depressive, passive-aggressive, and infuriatingly obstructionist in her career habits. Madonna is manic, perfectionist, workaholic. Monroe abused alcohol and drugs, while Madonna shuns them. Monroe had a tentative, melting, dreamy solipsism; Madonna has Judy Holliday's wisecracking smart mouth and Joan Crawford's steel will and bossy, circus master managerial competence.

Camille Paglia

Depression, Smart, Careers

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Contrary to popular opinion, classical music does not have to be enjoyed amid exclusive circles, there need not be any snobbishness attached to it. It's there for everyone. I play for the people.

Andre Rieu

Play, Circles, People

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The intellectual's hostility to the businessman presents no mystery, as the two have, by function, wholly different standards. While the businessman's motto is the customer is always right, the intellectual's task is to preserve his perceived standards against the weight of popular opinion.

Bertrand de Jouvenel

Philosophy, Two, Political

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Either one or the other [analysis or synthesis] may be direct or indirect. The direct procedure is when the point of departure is known-direct synthesis in the elements of geometry. By combining at random simple truths with each other, more complicated ones are deduced from them. This is the method of discovery, the special method of inventions, contrary to popular opinion.

Andre-Marie Ampere

Knowledge, Science, Simple

"André-Marie Ampère: Enlightenment and Electrodynamics". Book by James R. Hofmann, p. 159, 1996.

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