Public Opinion Quotations | Page 2

Nothing is more unjust or capricious than public opinion.

The measure of any man's virtue is what he would do, if he had neither the laws nor public opinion, nor even his own prejudices, to control him.

Public opinion is the pennant on a nation's mast which shows the politician and the editor how to trim the sails.

Public opinion is always more tyrannical towards those who obviously fear it than towards those who feel indifferent to it.

What we call public opinion is generally public sentiment.

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

Public opinion is the judgment of the incapable many opposed to that of the discerning few.

Our government rests in public opinion. Whoever can change public opinion, can change the government, practically just so much.

Neither the Church nor modern public opinion condemns petting, provided it stops short at a certain point.

Public opinion, though often formed upon a wrong basis, yet generally has a strong underlying sense of justice.

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

Those who have an interest in keeping the machinery of war going will stop at nothing to make public opinion subservient to their murderous ends.

A universal feeling, whether well or ill founded, cannot be safely disregarded.

Public opinion wins wars.

Englishmen never will be slaves; they are free to do whatever the government and public opinion allow them.

I'll tell you what's the greatest power under heaven, and that is public opinion-the ruling belief in society about what is right and what is wrong, what is honourable and what is shameful. That's the steam that is to work the engines.

Public opinion, because of the tremendous urge to conformity in gregarious animals, is less tolerant than any system of law.

No man on earth is truly free, All are slaves of money or necessity. Public opinion or fear of prosecution forces each one, against his conscience, to conform.

Without meaning, without substance, without aim: a mere 'public opinion'.

At any given moment, public opinion is a chaos of superstition, misinformation, and prejudice.

Public opinion, in its raw state, gushes out in the immemorial form of the mob's fear. It is piped into central factories, and there it is flavored and colored, and put into cans.

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

We in the House of Lords are never in touch with public opinion. That makes us a civilised body.

Public opinion exists only where there are no ideas.

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

The pressure of public opinion is like the pressure of the atmosphere; you can't see it - but all the same, it is sixteen pounds to the square inch.

There is no group in America that can withstand the force of an aroused public opinion.

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

Journalism has a distinct place in familiarizing and expressing public opinion.

The only force at the disposal of democracy is that of public opinion.

When the panchayat raj is established, public opinion will do what violence can never do.

The satyagrahi strives to reach reason through the heart. The method of reaching the heart is to awaken public opinion.

Satyagraha is a process of educating public opinion, such that it covers all the elements of the society and in the end makes itself irresistible.

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

Non-co-operation is the quickest method of creating public opinion.

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.

To attach no importance to public opinion, is a proof that you do not merit its suffrage.

Private opinion is weak, but public opinion is almost omnipotent.

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

Public opinion alone can keep a society pure and healthy.

Performance of one's duties should be independent of public opinion.

Some of my colleagues who are criticized today for lack of forthright principles-or who are looked upon with scorn as compromising "politicians"-are simply engaged in the fine art of conciliating, balancing and interpreting the forces and factions of public opinion, an art essential to keeping our nation united and enabling our Government to function.

Wonderful Force of Public Opinion! We must act and walk in all points as it prescribes; follow the traffic it bids us, realize the sum of money, the degree of influence it expects of us, or we shall be lightly esteemed; certain mouthfuls of articulate wind will be blown at us, and this what mortal courage can front?

The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep he waters pure.

Government is being founded on opinion, the opinion of the public, even when it is wrong, ought to be respected to a certain degree.

When right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the whole ground.

If the freedom of religion, guaranteed to us by law in theory, can ever rise in practice under the overbearing inquisition of public opinion, [then and only then will truth]prevail over fanaticism.

About things on which the public thinks long it commonly attains to think right.

The public buys its opinions as it buys its meat, or takes in its milk, on the principle that it is cheaper to do this than to keep a cow. So it is, but the milk is more likely to be watered.

When we are high and airy hundreds say That if we hold that flight they'll leave the place, While those same hundreds mock another day Because we have made our art of common things ...

Politicians, after all, are not over a year behind public opinion.