Public Opinion Quotes

• Public opinion is held in reverence. It settles everything. Some think it is the voice of God.

  Mark Twain

  God, Thinking, Voice

  Mark Twain (2015). “Bite-Size Twain: Wit and Wisdom from the Literary Legend”, p.44, St. Martin's Press

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• Public opinion is a mysterious and invisible power, to which everything must yield. There is nothing more fickle, more vague, or more powerful; yet capricious as it is, it is nevertheless much more often true, reasonable, and just, than we imagine.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Powerful, Yield, Fickle

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• Public opinion sets bounds to every government, and is the real sovereign in every free one.

  James Madison

  Real, Government, Sovereign

  James Madison (1867). “1829-1836”, p.460

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• A government can be no better than the public opinion which sustains it.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Government, Opinion

  Roosevelt, Franklin D. (1938). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: F.D. Roosevelt, 1936, Volume 5”, p.43, Best Books on

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• If forty million people say a foolish thing it does not become a wise one.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Wise, People, Atheism

  W. Somerset Maugham (2011). “A Writer's Notebook”, p.61, Random House

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• There is nothing that makes more cowards and feeble men than public opinion.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Men, Coward, Opinion

  Henry Ward Beecher, William Drysdale (1887). “Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit”

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• It is a besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion for law. This is the usual form in which masses of men exhibit their tyranny.

  James F. Cooper

  Freedom, Men, Democracies Have

  "The American Democrat: Or, Hints on the Social and Civic Relations of the United States of America". Book by James Fenimore Cooper, 1838.

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

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Power, Politics, Should

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

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

  Grantland Rice

  Confidence, Wise, Wisdom

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• Public Opinion... an attempt to organize the ignorance of the community, and to elevate it to the dignity of physical force.

  Oscar Wilde

  Ignorance, Community, Dignity

  Oscar Wilde (2012). “The Wit and Humor of Oscar Wilde”, p.118, Courier Corporation

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• Nothing is so contagious as opinion, especially on questions which, being susceptible of very different glosses, beget in the mind a distrust of itself.

  James Madison

  Mind, Different, Gloss

  James Madison (1867). “1769-1793”, p.510

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• When misguided public opinion honors what is despicable and despises what is honorable, punishes virtue and rewards vice, encourages what is harmful and discourages what is useful, applauds falsehood and smothers truth under indifference or insult, a nation turns its back on progress and can be restored only by the terrible lessons of catastrophe.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Political, Honor, Progress

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

  Winston Churchill

  Life, Motivational, Popular Opinion

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• What we call public opinion is generally public sentiment.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Opinion, Sentiments

  Benjamin Disraeli (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Benjamin Disraeli (Illustrated)”, p.5029, Delphi Classics

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• Where mass opinion dominates the government, there is a morbid derangement of the true functions of power. The derangement brings about the enfeeblement, verging on paralysis, of the capacity to govern. This breakdown in the constitutional order is the cause of the precipitate and catastrophic decline of Western society. It may, if it cannot be arrested and reversed, bring about the fall of the West.

  Walter Lippmann

  Fall, Government, Order

  Walter Lippmann, Clinton Rossiter, James Lare (1982). “The Essential Lippmann: A Political Philosophy for Liberal Democracy”, p.241, Harvard University Press

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• The Press, which is mostly controlled by vested interests, has an excessive influence on public opinion.

  Albert Einstein

  Influence, Interest, Controlled

  Albert Einstein (2010). “Ideas And Opinions”, p.6, Broadway Books

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• A state that denies its citizens their basic rights becomes a danger to its neighbors as well: internal arbitrary rule will be reflected in arbitrary external relations. The suppression of public opinion, the abolition of public competition for power and its public exercise opens the way for the state power to arm itself in any way it sees fit.... A state that does not hesitate to lie to its own people will not hesitate to lie to other states.

  Vaclav Havel

  Lying, Exercise, Rights

  "Living in Truth". Book by Vaclav Havel, 1986.

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• Democracy is just a filler for textbooks! Do you actually believe that public opinion influences the government?

  Voltaire

  Believe, Government, Democracy

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• Public opinion, I am sorry to say, will bear a great deal of nonsense. There is scarcely any absurdity so gross, whether in religion, politics, science or manners, which it will not bear.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Im Sorry, I Am Sorry, Bears

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• All free governments, whatever their name, are in reality governments by public opinion ; and it is on the quality of this public opinion that their prosperity depends. It is, therefore, their first duty to purify the element from which they draw the breath of life.

  James Russell Lowell

  Reality, Government, Names

  James Russell Lowell (1910). “Essays, English and American”

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• Creation of effective public opinion depends on the cultivation of true courage, born of truthfulness and nonviolence.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Creation, Born, Truthfulness

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• The tiniest bits of opinion sown in the minds of children in private life afterwards issue forth to the world, and become its public opinion; for nations are gathered out of nurseries.

  Samuel Smiles

  Children, Issues, Mind

  Samuel Smiles (1910). “Character. Repr”

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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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• Majorities can be wrong, majorities can overrule rights of minorities. If majorities ruled, we could still have slavery. 80% of the population once enslaved 20% of the population. While run by majority rule that is ok. That is very flawed notion of what democracy is. Democracy has to take into account several things - proportionate requirements of people, not just needs of the majority, but also needs of the minority. Majority, especially in societies where the media manipulates public opinion, can be totally wrong and evil. People have to act according to conscience and not by majority vote.

  Howard Zinn

  Running, Democracies Have, Rights

  "Rebels Against Tyranny". Interview with Ziga Vodovnik, www.counterpunch.org. May 12, 2008.

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• Public opinion is an extremely mutable thing

  Henrik Ibsen

  Opinion

  Henrik Ibsen (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henrik Ibsen (Illustrated)”, p.2229, Delphi Classics

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