A man must know how to brave public opinion, a woman how to submit to it.

One should respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny

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.

Public opinion is the thermometer a monarch should constantly consult.

All becomes easy when we follow the current of opinion; it is the ruler of the world.

With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed. Consequently he who molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions.

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

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

Any court which undertakes by its legal processes to enforce civil liberties needs the support of an enlightened and vigorous public opinion which will be intelligent and discriminating as to what cases really are civil liberties cases and what questions really are involved in those cases.

Public opinion, a vulgar, impertinent, anonymous tyrant who deliberately makes life unpleasant for anyone who is not content to be the average man.

A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows.

The idea of what the public will think prevents the public from ever thinking at all, and acts as a spell on the exercise of private judgment.

According to the experience of all but the most accomplished jugglers, it is easier to keep one ball in the air than many.

What we call public opinion is generally public sentiment.

When the multitude detests a man, inquiry is necessary; when the multitude likes a man, inquiry is equally necessary.

Nothing is more dangerous in wartime than to live in the temperamental atmosphere of a Gallup Poll, always feeling one's pulse and taking one's temperature.

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.

Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

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