“Public opinion reigns in society because stupidity reigns amongst the stupid.”
Reflections
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Nicolas Chamfort 54
French writer 1741–1794Related quotes
“You can never underestimate the stupidity of the general public”
“Obedience to public authority ought not to be based either on ignorance or stupidity.”
Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)
“It's so, so stupid what we do to ourselves because we're afraid. It's so stupid.”
Source: Keeping the Moon
"The White Diamond" (2004)
On the music of Giuseppe Verdi. Quoted in Boulez: Composer, Conductor, Enigma by Joan Peyser, New York: Schirmer Books, 1976.
“Censorship, in my opinion, is a stupid and shallow way of approaching the solution to any problem.”
Associated Press luncheon http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/all_about_ike/quotes.html#censorship (24 April 1950), New York City, New York
1950s
Context: Censorship, in my opinion, is a stupid and shallow way of approaching the solution to any problem. Though sometimes necessary, as witness a professional and technical secret that may have a bearing upon the welfare and very safety of this country, we should be very careful in the way we apply it, because in censorship always lurks the very great danger of working to the disadvantage of the American nation.
"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.