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If a radical devolution of powers was possible, it would have been done before. The assumption of states' rights is gone. There's no support for it in the Supreme Court and there's no support for it in public opinion.
Author:
James Wilson
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As the senior commander in Vietnam, I was aware of the potency of public opinion - and I worried about it.
Author:
William Westmoreland
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Public opinion is stronger than the legislature, and nearly as strong as the ten commandments.
Author:
Charles Warner
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What we need are not prohibitory marriage laws, but a reformed society, an educated public opinion which will teach individual duty in these matters.
Author:
Alfred Wallace
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One might almost reckon mathematically that, having undergone the double composition of public opinion and of the author, their history reaches us at third hand and is thus separated by two stages from the original fact.
Author:
Alfred Vigny
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One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.
Author:
Bertrand Russell
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We have hardly an adequate idea how all-powerful law is in forming public opinion, in giving tone and character to the mass of society.
Author:
Ernestine Rose
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The line of least resistance in the progress of civilization is to make that theoretical postulate real by the continually increasing force of the world's public opinion.
Author:
Elihu Root
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A wise man makes his own decisions, an ignorant man follows the public opinion.
Author:
Grantland Rice
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In the long run, much public opinion is made in the universities; ideas generated there filter down through the teaching profession and the students into the general public.
Author:
B. Reece
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Journalists should denounce government by public opinion polls.
Author:
Dan Rather
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Public opinion polls are rather like children in a garden, digging things up all the time to see how they're growing.
Author:
J. Priestley
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Law is nothing unless close behind it stands a warm, living public opinion.
Author:
Wendell Phillips
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In America, public opinion is the leader.
Author:
Frances Perkins
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Public opinion is a compound of folly, weakness, prejudice, wrong feeling, right feeling, obstinacy, and newspaper paragraphs.
Author:
Robert Peel
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The Reform Bill has destroyed the ancient conduits and strainers, and brings Public Opinion to act upon the government with the rapid, turbulent, and uncertain violence of a flood!
Author:
Robert Peel
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No minister ever stood, or could stand, against public opinion.
Author:
Robert Peel
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There is probably a perverse pride in my administration... that we were going to do the right thing, even if short-term it was unpopular. And I think anybody who's occupied this office has to remember that success is determined by an intersection in policy and politics and that you can't be neglecting of marketing and P.R. and public opinion.
Author:
Barack Obama
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Useless knowledge can be made directly contributory to a force of sound and disinterested public opinion.
Author:
Albert Nock
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One cannot wage war under present conditions without the support of public opinion, which is tremendously molded by the press and other forms of propaganda.
Author:
Douglas MacArthur
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The private citizen, beset by partisan appeals for the loan of his Public Opinion, will soon see, perhaps, that these appeals are not a compliment to his intelligence, but an imposition on his good nature and an insult to his sense of evidence.
Author:
Walter Lippmann
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Public opinion in this country is everything.
Author:
Abraham Lincoln
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I think there are many times when it would be most efficient to use nuclear weapons. However, the public opinion in this country and throughout the world throw up their hands in horror when you mention nuclear weapons, just because of the propaganda that's been fed to them.
Author:
Curtis Lemay
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Leaders are responsible not for running public opinion polls but for the consequences of their actions.
Author:
Henry Kissinger
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Where there is little or no public opinion, there is likely to be bad government, which sooner or later becomes autocratic government.
Author:
William King
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The Muslims have, as everyone else says, the right to practice their religion and they have the right to construct a mosque at ground zero if they wish. What I am saying, though, is that they should listen to public opinion, they should listen to the deep wounds and anguish that this is causing to so many good people.
Author:
Peter King
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Government, in the last analysis, is organized opinion. Where there is little or no public opinion, there is likely to be bad government.
Author:
Mackenzie King
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I believe that in the end the abolition of war, the maintenance of world peace, the adjustment of international questions by pacific means will come through the force of public opinion, which controls nations and peoples.
Author:
Frank Kellogg
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Public opinion shapes our destinies and guides the progress of human affairs.
Author:
Frank Kellogg
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It is not at all clear how much the media influences public opinion and how much public opinion influences the media.
Author:
Bruce Jackson
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American public opinion is like an ocean, it cannot be stirred by a teaspoon.
Author:
Hubert Humphrey
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From whichever angle one looks at it, the application of racial theories remains a striking proof of the lowered demands of public opinion upon the purity of critical judgment.
Author:
Johan Huizinga
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Publicity is a great purifier because it sets in action the forces of public opinion, and in this country public opinion controls the courses of the nation.
Author:
Charles Hughes
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They tend to be civil servants, often diplomats drawn from the Foreign Office, who may be very pleasant, intelligent people, but once they get inside the Palace they're riveted to the status quo and they lose track of public opinion in the real world.
Author:
Anthony Holden
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Not merely can people like me write things that would never have been printed before but I think an enormously dramatic change has taken place in public opinion, possibly for the wrong reasons.
Author:
Anthony Holden
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This party will not take its position based on public opinion polls. We will not take a stand based on focus groups. We will not take a stand based on phone-in shows or householder surveys or any other vagaries of pubic opinion.
Author:
Stephen Harper
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A statesman, we are told, should follow public opinion. Doubtless, as a coachman follows his horses; having firm hold on the reins and guiding them.
Author:
Augustus Hare
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Painting is a faith, and it imposes the duty to disregard public opinion.
Author:
Vincent Gogh
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It is the absolute right of the State to supervise the formation of public opinion.
Author:
Joseph Goebbels
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For me every ruler is alien that defies public opinion.
Author:
Mohandas Gandhi
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Polling is merely an instrument for gauging public opinion. When a president or any other leader pays attention to poll results, he is, in effect, paying attention to the views of the people. Any other interpretation is nonsense.
Author:
George Gallup
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Mob law is the most forcible expression of an abnormal public opinion; it shows that society is rotten to the core.
Author:
Timothy Fortune
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You don't change minds in Washington with sweet reason. You do it to the white light of public opinion.
Author:
Steve Forbes
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I've seen public opinion shift like the wind and put out the very fire it lighted.
Author:
Rachel Field
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The Iranian government intends to use the nuclear program for peaceful purposes, but must convince international public opinion of that.
Author:
Shirin Ebadi
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The artist is chosen by God to fulfill his commands and must never be overwhelmed by public opinion.
Author:
Albrecht Druer
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This war is being played in the realm of public opinion and has dire consequences for our soldiers in Iraq, the future of our country, and freedom around the world.
Author:
John Doolittle
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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.
Author:
James Cooper
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It is the besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion for law. This is the usual form in which the masses of men exhibit their tyranny.
Author:
James Cooper
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Whenever the government of the United States shall break up, it will probably be in consequence of a false direction having been given to public opinion.
Author:
James Cooper
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There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion.
Author:
Winston Churchill
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At the bottom of not a little of the bravery that appears in the world, there lurks a miserable cowardice. Men will face powder and steel because they have not the courage to face public opinion.
Author:
Edwin Chapin
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There are certain times when public opinion is the worst of all opinions.
Author:
Nicolas Chamfort
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The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty and death of public opinion.
Author:
Samuel Butler
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Judges rule on the basis of law, not public opinion, and they should be totally indifferent to pressures of the times.
Author:
Warren Burger
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There is a power in public opinion in this country - and I thank God for it: for it is the most honest and best of all powers - which will not tolerate an incompetent or unworthy man to hold in his weak or wicked hands the lives and fortunes of his fellow-citizens.
Author:
Martin Buren
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The World War broke out with such elemental violence, and with such resort to all means for leading or misleading public opinion, that no time was available for reflection and consideration.
Author:
Hjalmar Branting
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The course of business shapes public opinion.
Author:
Marvin Bower
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Business leaders shape public opinion.
Author:
Marvin Bower
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Public opinion is the thermometer a monarch should constantly consult.
Author:
Napoleon Bonaparte
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If public opinion still endorses military action that's one thing, but if they wait maybe it will not. So it's not only impatience, but there are several other factors.
Author:
Hans Blix
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It is precisely the purpose of the public opinion generated by the press to make the public incapable of judging, to insinuate into it the attitude of someone irresponsible, uninformed.
Author:
Walter Benjamin
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I believe if a private citizen is able to affect public opinion in a constructive way he doesn't have to be an elected public servant to perform a public service.
Author:
Warren Beatty
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The best government rests on the people, and not on the few, on persons and not on property, on the free development of public opinion and not on authority.
Author:
George Bancroft
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Public opinion is a permeating influence, and it exacts obedience to itself; it requires us to drink other men's thoughts, to speak other men's words, to follow other men's habits.
Author:
Walter Bagehot
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I think the people will- who advocate having a step back and read those public opinion polls on the front page of the newspapers all over this country saying public supports restoration in restoration of the Everglades, protection of the parks and the creation of monuments.
Author:
Bruce Babbitt
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Public opinion is no more than this: what people think that other people think.
Author:
Alfred Austin
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I think that the legitimacy of the court would be undermined in any case if the court made a decision based on its perception of public opinion.
Author:
Samuel Alito
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Public opinion is a second conscience.
Author:
William Alger
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Israel does not care about the international public opinion.
Author:
Bashar al-Assad
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The American people should be made aware of the trend toward monopolization of the great public information vehicles and the concentration of more and more power over public opinion in fewer and fewer hands.
Author:
Spiro Agnew
