Public Opinion Quotes

“Don't waste your time with explanations: people only hear what they want to hear.”
― Paulo Coelho

“But collective thinking is usually short-lived. We're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction.”
― Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

“People are stupid. They will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true.”
― Terry Goodkind, Wizard's First Rule

“It must be very fragile, if a handful of berries can bring it down.”
― Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire

“You have to remember one thing about the will of the people: it wasn't that long ago that we were swept away by the Macarena.”
― Jon Stewart

“Whoever controls the media, the
images, controls the culture.”
― Allen Ginsberg

“If any man despises me, that is his problem. My only concern is not doing or saying anything deserving of contempt.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“There are so many more important things to worry about than how you're perceived by strangers.”
― Dennis Lehane

“Constantly exposing yourself to popular culture and the mass media will ultimately shape your reality tunnel in ways that are not necessarily conducive to achieving your Soul Purpose and Life Calling. Modern society has generally ‘lost the plot’. Slavishly following its false gods and idols makes no sense in a spiritually aware life.”
― Anthon St. Maarten

“Does history record any case in which the majority was right?”
― Robert A. Heinlein

“No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have searched the record for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.”
― H.L. Mencken, The Gist of Mencken: Quotations from America's Critic

“Public opinion is the worst of all opinions.”
― Chamfort

“By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, journalism keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Remember, the firemen are rarely necessary. The public itself stopped reading of its own accord.”
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

“Public opinion is an extremely mutable thing”
― Henrik Ibsen, An Enemy of the People

“Rumour is a pipe
Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures
And of so easy and so plain a stop
That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,
The still-discordant wavering multitude,
Can play upon it.”
― William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part Two

“The COUNTRY is controlled by LAWS>
LAWS are controlled by POLITICIANS>
POLITICIANS are controlled by VOTERS>
VOTERS are controlled by PUBLIC OPINION>
PUBLIC OPINION is controlled by the MEDIA (News, Hollywood, Internet...) & EDUCATION

so. whoever controls MEDIA & EDUCATION, controls the COUNTRY.”
― William J Federer, Change to Chains-The 6,000 Year Quest for Control -Volume I-Rise of the Republic

“In this age, in this country, public sentiment is everything. With it, nothing can fail; against it, nothing can succeed. Whoever molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes, or pronounces judicial decisions.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“If unconventional ideas = sperm, then public opinion = abortion.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“The Wit of Cheats, the Courage of a Whore,
Are what ten thousand envy and adore:
All, all look up, with reverential Awe,
At crimes that 'scape, or triumph o'er the Law:
While Truth, Worth, Wisdom, daily they decry-`
'Nothing is sacred now but Villainy'

- Epilogue to the Satires, Dialogue I”
― Alexander Pope

“When people read his books they have an uncontrollable desire to hang the author in the town square. I can’t think of a higher honor for a writer.”
― Roberto Bolaño

“Good Lord! who can account for the fathomless folly of the public?”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Light That Failed

“In one survey, respondents listed Princeton as one of the country’s top ten law schools. The problem? Princeton doesn’t have a law school”
― Alexandra Robbins

“We saw a pale echo of what is now possible in 1990-1991, when Saddam Hussein, the autocrat of Iraq, made a sudden transition in the American consciousness from an obscure near-ally - granted commodities, high technology, weaponry, and even satellite intelligence data - to a slavering monster menacing the world. I am not myself an admirer of Mr. Hussein, but it was striking how quickly he could be brought from someone almost no American had heard of into the incarnation of evil. These days the apparatus for generating indignation is busy elsewhere. How confident are we that the power to drive and determine public opinion will always reside in responsible hands?”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

“The issues Miss Quested had raised were so much more important than she was herself that people inevitably forgot her.”
― E.M. Forster, A Passage to India

“Vox populi, vox Humbug.”
― William T. Sherman

“I won't ask you to tell me who has spoken ill of me, but I would like to know who has spoken favorably.”
― Santiago Roncagliolo, Red April

“I have always tried to be obedient regarding important matters like not being scalded to death by burning oil, but when public opinion takes a route far from one's inner conviction, one cannot value disobedience too highly.”
― Barbara Dana, A Voice of Her Own: Becoming Emily Dickinson

“The aid agencies are not run by fools. they are full of intelligent people severely constrained by what public opinion permits.”
― Paul Collier, The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It

“The proliferation of material means that people might start to become selective about what they consume and, if my instincts are correct, they are likely to read only that which confirms what they already know. This means they will never have their ideas tested. I worry that as a result, people will form tight groups around those who confirm their biases, mistrusting those whom they encounter who think differently.”
― Una McCormack