public-opinion

Public opinion is to an unconventional idea _ what abortion is to sperm.

If unconventional ideas = sperm, then public opinion = abortion.

One less desirable aspect of democracy is that it seems to require serious demonization of the enemy if the nation and public opinion are to be galvanized sufficiently to pay a serious price in blood or treasure at war.

No one in this world, so far as I know__nd I have searched the record for years, and employed agents to help me__as ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.

Does history record any case in which the majority was right?

Don't waste your time with explanations: people only hear what they want to hear.

If large numbers of people believe in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it. But if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them.

People said it because other people said it. They did not know why it was being said and heard everywhere. They did not give or ask for reasons. 'Reason,' Dr. Pritchett had told them, 'is the most naive of all superstitions.' 'The source of public opinion?' said Claude Slagenhop in a public radio speech. 'There is no source of public opinion. It is spontaneously general. It is a reflex of the collective instinct of the collective mind.

The virtues of your character is more important the public opinion.

If any man despises me, that is his problem. My only concern is not doing or saying anything deserving of contempt.

When the name of Gail Wynand became a threat in the publishing world, a group of newspaper owners took him aside-at a city charity affair which all had to attend-and reproached him for what they called hid debasement of the public taste."It is not my function" said Wynand, "to help people preserve a self-respect they haven't got. You give them what they profess to like in public, I give them what they really like. Honesty is the best policy, gentlemen, though not quite in the sense you were taught to belive".

Misunderstanding is generally simpler than true understanding, and hence has more potential for popularity.