"Politics vs. Literature: An Examination of Gulliver's Travels," Polemic (September/October 1946) - Full text online http://orwell.ru/library/reviews/swift/english/e_swift
Context: In a Society in which there is no law, and in theory no compulsion, the only arbiter of behaviour is public opinion. But public opinion, because of the tremendous urge to conformity in gregarious animals, is less tolerant than any system of law. When human beings are governed by "thou shalt not", the individual can practise a certain amount of eccentricity: when they are supposedly governed by "love" or "reason", he is under continuous pressure to make him behave and think in exactly the same way as everyone else.
“The law is in a sense the consolidated public opinion of society.”
Defence of Criminals: A Criticism of Morality (1889)
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Edward Carpenter 19
British poet and academic 1844–1929Related quotes
“Public opinion's always in advance of the law.”
Windows, Act I (1922)
“Public opinion reigns in society because stupidity reigns amongst the stupid.”
Reflections
"The Welfare State in Trouble: Systemic Crisis or Growing Pains?" The American Economic Review (May 1980).
“Where public opinion is free and uncontrolled, wealth has a wholesome respect for the law.”
"Fooling the People as a Fine Art", La Follette's Magazine (April 1918)
"Freedom of the Park", Tribune (7 December 1945)
Ch. 1 Marchamont Nedham : The Right Constitution of a Commonwealth Examined http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/print_documents/v1ch16s15.html <!-- The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States vol. VI (1851) p. 9 -->
1780s, A Defence of the Constitutions of Government (1787)
Context: The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If "Thou shall not covet," and "Thou shall not steal," are not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society, before it can be civilized or made free.
"Fooling the People as a Fine Art", La Follette's Magazine (April 1918)