Any politician in a democracy has to be mindful of public opinion.
The course of business shapes public opinion.
American public opinion is like an ocean, it cannot be stirred by a teaspoon.
Public opinion shapes our destinies and guides the progress of human affairs.
Useless knowledge can be made directly contributory to a force of sound and disinterested public opinion.
Israel does not care about the international public opinion.
In America, public opinion is the leader.
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.
But being in the closet uniquely assisted me in politics. From my first run for the state legislature until my election as governor, all too often I was not leading but following my best guess at public opinion.
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.
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.
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.
No minister ever stood, or could stand, against public opinion.
Public opinion is a second conscience.
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.
Public opinion is a compound of folly, weakness, prejudice, wrong feeling, right feeling, obstinacy, and newspaper paragraphs.
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.
I've seen public opinion shift like the wind and put out the very fire it lighted.
I don't really believe in moral victories. You can have them when you're dealing with public opinion, but in litigation, you want to win the case. I want to win.
Judges rule on the basis of law, not public opinion, and they should be totally indifferent to pressures of the times.
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.
What manner of thing this 'public opinion' is, should be best known to those who have its name forever in their mouths and erect the regard for it into a positive article of religion. Its self-styled organ in our times is the 'Press.'
Government, in the last analysis, is organized opinion. Where there is little or no public opinion, there is likely to be bad government.
The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty and death of public opinion.
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.
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.
Where there is little or no public opinion, there is likely to be bad government, which sooner or later becomes autocratic government.
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.
An identity based in the one-way love of God does not take into account public opinion or, thankfully, even personal opinion.
Transactional politics requires us to be pragmatic about current realities and the state of public opinion. It's all about getting the best result possible given the circumstances here and now.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
With Donald J. Trump's arrival to power, many feel astonished by the growth of populism. Others analyze with extreme care the decline of companies that measure public opinion. I am saddened to watch the lack of temperament and political stability of those who 'represent' a trend or ideology.