Quotes about popularity
page 11

Carl Sagan photo
Carl Sagan photo

“There is a popular contention that half or more of the brain is unused. From an evolutionary point of view this would be quite extraordinary: why should it have evolved if it had no function? But actually the statement is made on very little evidence.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Source: The Dragons of Eden (1977), Chapter 2, “Genes and Brains” (p. 31)

James Madison photo

“A popular Government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

Letter to W.T. Barry http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch18s35.html (4 August 1822), in The Writings of James Madison (1910) edited by Gaillard Hunt, Vol. 9, p. 103; these words, using the older spelling "Governours", are inscribed to the left of the main entrance, Library of Congress James Madison Memorial Building.
1820s

Tony Benn photo
Roy Jenkins photo

“It was better to have a somewhat harsh Budget, which would cure inflation, rather than a generous, popular Budget which would merely undermine the purchasing power of the pound.”

Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) British politician, historian and writer

Maiden speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1970/apr/20/budget-resolutions-and-economic-situation#column_83 in the House of Commons (3 June 1948)
1940s

Douglas Murray photo

“To immerse oneself in popular culture for any length of time is to wallow in an almost unbearable shallowness.”

Douglas Murray (1979) British political commentator and far-right activist

The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam (2017)

Dave Grohl photo

“One thing I did before Nirvana became popular was I stopped doing drugs.”

Dave Grohl (1969) American rock musician, multi-instrumentalist, and singer-songwriter
Alan Watts photo

“We say in popular speech that we come into this world, but we do nothing of the kind. We come out of it.”

Alan Watts (1915–1973) British philosopher, writer and speaker

In the same way as the fruit comes out of the tree, the egg from the chicken, and the baby from the womb, we are symptomatic of the universe. Just as in the retina there are myriads of little nerve endings, we are the nerve endings of the universe.
Source: Ways of Liberation: Essays and Lectures on the Transformation of Self (1983), p. 25

Charles Webster Leadbeater photo
Charles Webster Leadbeater photo
Alfred Percy Sinnett photo
Benjamin Disraeli photo
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez photo

“The GOP is working overtime to dismantle labor unions, which are exceedingly popular with the American public. Unions secure higher wages and better work conditions. We should support them, even if we’re not in one.”

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (1989) American politician

Or look into unionization in your industry!
Twitter Post https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1135211015820533760, (2 June 2019)
Twitter Quotes (2019), June 2019

Ernesto Che Guevara photo
Jay Nordlinger photo

“Maybe baseball has to accept that it is now more like classical music than popular music, with football and basketball — and soccer?”

Jay Nordlinger (1963) American journalist

being the Justin Biebers and Lady Gagas of sports. Baseball need not hang its head in shame. A lot of things that are good and worthy are not popular. And baseball is plenty popular, for heaven's sake.
2010s, Baseball and Its Worriers (2018)

Annie Besant photo

“It is patent to every student of the closing forty years of the last century, that crowds of thoughtful and moral people have slipped away from the churches, because the teachings they received there outraged their intelligence and shocked their moral sense. It is idle to pretend that the widespread agnosticism of this period had its root either in lack of morality or in deliberate crookedness of mind. Everyone who carefully studies the phenomena presented will admit that men of strong intellect have been driven out of Christianity by the crudity of the religious ideas set before them, the contradictions in the authoritative teachings, the views as to God, man, and the universe that no trained intelligence could possibly admit. Nor can it be said that any kind of moral degradation lay at the root of the revolt against the dogmas of the Church. The rebels were not too bad for their religion; on the contrary, it was the religion that was too bad for them. The rebellion against popular Christianity was due to the awakening and the growth of conscience; it was the conscience that revolted, as well as the intelligence, against teachings dishonouring to God and man alike, that represented God as a tyrant, and man as essentially evil, gaining salvation by slavish submission.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

Esoteric Christianity (The Lesser Mysteries) (1914)

Hermann von Keyserling photo

“I have not found in Europe or America, poets, thinkers or popular leaders equal, or even comparable, to those of India today.”

Hermann von Keyserling (1880–1946) German philosopher

Quoted from Gewali, Salil (2013). Great Minds on India. New Delhi: Penguin Random House.

Gerda Lerner photo
Baruch Spinoza photo
Jerzy Vetulani photo
Edward Bellamy photo
Elizabeth Warren photo
Norodom Ranariddh photo

“Everyone knows that the only person in Funcinpec with the influence and popularity to work against the CPP is Prince Ranariddh. In Khmer society, only the monarchy can stand up to the CPP but it needs a nationalist movement behind it.”

Norodom Ranariddh (1944) Cambodian politician

by Sisowath Thomico, President of the Sangkum Jatiniyum Front Party in November 2006
[Vong Sokheng and Charles McDermid, http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/funcinpec-prince-hails-royalist-cpp, Funcinpec prince hails 'Royalist' CPP, 3 November 2006, 28 August 2015, Phnom Penh Post]

Zail Singh photo
Zail Singh photo

“A veteran of the Indian independence movement against Britain, he was personally popular for his earthy humor and political skills.”

Zail Singh (1916–1994) Indian politician and former President of India

Sanjoy Hazarika, in: Zail Singh, 78, First Sikh To Hold India's Presidency http://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/26/obituaries/zail-singh-78-first-sikh-to-hold-india-s-presidency.html, The New York Times, 26 December 1994.

Zakir Hussain (politician) photo
V. V. Giri photo
M. Balamuralikrishna photo

“An enduring legacy of Balamuralikrishna is the wider accessibility of classical kirtanas to the public. Many of his contemporaries tend to treat classical and popular music as watertight compartments.”

M. Balamuralikrishna (1930–2016) Carnatic vocalist, instrumentalist and playback singer

Garimella Subramaniam in: A musical colossus http://hindu.com/2004/07/06/stories/2004070603272000.htm, The Hindu, 6 July 2004.

Swathi Thirunal Rama Varma photo

“Over the years, some of the Maharaja’s compositions have become very popular but there are so many more. My aim has been to present some of these rarely heard compositions every year.”

Swathi Thirunal Rama Varma (1813–1846) Maharajah of Travencore

Aswathy Thirunal Rama Varma, in "Royal musical treat"
About Swathi Thirunal

Tulsidas photo
K. L. Saigal photo
Hariprasad Chaurasia photo
Bismillah Khan photo
Sunil Dutt photo
Rajinikanth photo

“Continues that great tradition that binds reel-life with the larger than life-world as a popular hero.”

Rajinikanth (1950) Indian actor

Harish Naraindas
Decoding Rajinikanth

Rajinikanth photo
Rajinikanth photo
Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury photo
Philip Schaff photo

“He adapted the words to the capacity of the Germans, often at the expense of accuracy. He cared more for the substance than the form. He turned the Hebrew shekel into a Silberling, the Greek drachma and Roman denarius into a German Groschen, the quadrans into a Heller, the Hebrew measures into Scheffel, Malter, Tonne, Centner, and the Roman centurion into a Hauptmann. He substituted even undeutsch (!) for barbarian in 1 Cor. 14:11. Still greater liberties he allowed himself in the Apocrypha, to make them more easy and pleasant reading. He used popular alliterative phrases as Geld und Gut, Land und Leute, Rath und That, Stecken und Stab, Dornen und Disteln, matt und müde, gäng und gäbe.”

Philip Schaff (1819–1893) American Calvinist theologian

He avoided foreign terms which rushed in like a flood with the revival of learning, especially in proper names (as Melanchthon for Schwarzerd, Aurifaber for Goldschmid, Oecolampadius for Hausschein, Camerarius for Kammermeister). He enriched the vocabulary with such beautiful words as holdselig, Gottseligkeit.
Erasmus Alber, a contemporary of Luther, called him the German Cicero, who not only reformed religion, but also the German language.
Luther's version is an idiomatic reproduction of the Bible in the very spirit of the Bible. It brings out the whole wealth, force, and beauty of the German language. It is the first German classic, as King James's version is the first English classic. It anticipated the golden age of German literature as represented by Klopstock, Lessing, Herder, Goethe, Schiller,—all of them Protestants, and more or less indebted to the Luther-Bible for their style. The best authority in Teutonic philology pronounces his language to be the foundation of the new High German dialect on account of its purity and influence, and the Protestant dialect on account of its freedom which conquered even Roman Catholic authors.
Notable examples of Luther's renderings of Hebrew and Greek words
Source: The same word silverling occurs once in the English version, Isa. 7:23, and is retained in the R. V. of 1885. The German Probebibel retains it in this and other passages, as Gen. 20:16; Judg. 9:4, etc.
Source: See Grimm, Luther's Uebersetzung der Apocryphen, in the "Studien und Kritiken" for 1883, pp. 376-400. He judges that Luther's version of Ecclesiasticus (Jesus Sirach) is by no means a faithful translation, but a model of a free and happy reproduction from a combination of the Greek and Latin texts.

Mel Brooks photo

“Impoverished Paris Street Merchant (Jack Carter): Rats, rats for sale. Get your rats. Good for rat stew, rat soup, or the ever-popular ratatouille.”

Mel Brooks (1926) American director, writer, actor, and producer

History of the World, Part I

Richard Dawkins photo
Steven Crowder photo
Steven Crowder photo
John F. Kennedy photo

“History is full of the accounts of those who imposed their absolute power against popular will.”

Mubarak Ali (1941) Historian, activist, scholar

What History Tells Us, p. 8
History, What History Tells Us

Michel Henry photo
Nigel Farage photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo
David Hilbert photo
Jacinda Ardern photo
Daniel Hannan photo
Robert Filmer photo
Daphne du Maurier photo

“My novels are what is known as popular and sell very well, but I am not a critic’s favourite, indeed I am generally dismissed with a sneer as a bestseller and not reviewed at all.”

Daphne du Maurier (1907–1989) British writer

On how her novels are typically received by critics (as quoted in “Why Daphne du Maurier was Britain’s mistress of suspense” http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20170609-why-daphne-du-maurier-was-britains-mistress-of-suspense in The Guardian; 2017 Jun 13)

Savitri Devi photo
Martin J. Rees photo

“We’re all depressingly ‘lay’ outside our specialisms — my own knowledge, of recent biological advances, such as it is, comes largely from ‘popular’ books and journalism.”

Martin J. Rees (1942) cosmologist, astrophysicist, Astronomer Royal, Master of Trinity College, President of the Royal Society

as quoted by Jessica Bland in [16 January 2012, Martin Rees looks back to understand why 'scientific citizens' will be important in the future, In Verba, The Royal Society, http://blogs.royalsociety.org/in-verba/2012/01/16/martin-rees-looks-back-to-understand-why-‘scientific-citizens’-will-be-important-in-the-future/]

Ayub Bachchu photo

“Rock music makes me alive, it makes me awake, so that tiredness can touch me and make me say – It's enough, I have earned much popularity.”

Ayub Bachchu (1962–2018) Musician, singer, songwriter

Bachchu in an interview with Shomoy TV.

Liv Tyler photo
Edmund Burke photo
Rosa Luxemburg photo
Benjamin Franklin photo

“Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins. Republics and limited monarchies derive their strength and vigor from a popular examination into the action of the magistrates.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

"On Freedom of Speech and the Press", Pennsylvania Gazette (17 November 1737) http://books.google.de/books?id=HptPAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA431&dq=pillar.
1720s

Michael Moore photo

“Stop this war! Shame on you Hobbits! Shame on you! This is a fictitious war! This Lord was not elected by the popular”

Michael Moore (1954) American filmmaker, author, social critic, and liberal activist

a computer-generated Oliphaunt steps on Moore, crushing him
In a humorous sendup of Moore's previous acceptance speech for Best Documentary Feature at the 2003 Oscars. Moore himself delivered the lines in the opening act of the 2004 Oscars, while standing in front of a greenscreen which had the Battle of the Pelennor Fields scene from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King playing on it; a battle which was, itself, literally fictitious. (23 March 2004)
2004

Margaret Chase Smith photo
Joe Armstrong photo

“The inability to isolate software components from each other is the main reason why many popular programming languages cannot be used for making robust system software.”

Joe Armstrong (1950–2019) British computer scientist

page 32
Making Reliable Distributed Systems in the Presence of Software Errors

James Alan Fox photo

“Certain guns have a reputation of being especially deadly. They would be the weapons of choice. Contrary to popular belief that these are guys who go berserk, they tend to be well-planned executions. They plan what they are going to wear and what weapons to bring.”

James Alan Fox (1951) American criminologist

referring to the Glock semiautomatic handgun ([Glock semiautomatic pistol links recent mass shootings, Sari, Horwitz, w:Sari Horwitz, July 20, 2012, The Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/glock-semiautomatic-pistol-links-recent-mass-shootings/2012/07/20/gJQAINYwyW_story.html])
Quote

Marcelo H. del Pilar photo
Sheyene Gerardi photo

“Prior to studies of unusually intelligent people that showed them to be generally much better adapted and happier than others, the popular belief in the United States was that exceptional intelligence was often associated with exceptional ability to “drive yourself nuts.””

Robyn Dawes (1936–2010) American psychologist

Hence, people believed that genius and lunacy were intimately connected. Perhaps, nearly all of us “drive ourselves a little nuts” by virtue of creating stories that lead us to the illusion that we understand history, other people, causality, and life—when we don’t.
Source: Everyday Irrationality: How Pseudo-Scientists, Lunatics, and the Rest of Us Systematically Fail to Think Rationally (2001), Chapter 7, “Good Stories” (p. 125)

Bobby Heenan photo

“I'd love to be popular in Barcelona. That sounds like a fun job.”

Bobby Heenan (1944–2017) American professional wrestler, professional wrestling commentator and manager

Misc.

Kim Jong-il photo

“Calling socialism, under which the popular masses are the masters of everything, "totalitarianism" is, ultimately, a preposterous lie which identifies the most progressive idea that reflects the demands of the popular masses with the reactionary idea of fascist rulers.”

Kim Jong-il (1941–2011) General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea

Source: "Abuses of socialism are intolerable," article in Central Committee magazine Kulloja (March 1, 1993)

Ebrahim Raisi photo

“We know that threats and sanctions from the enemy have brought difficulties to the management of the country, but there are also considerable sacred, popular, economic and international capabilities that can help us overcome these challenges.”

Ebrahim Raisi (1960) Iranian president

Source: 5 August 2021, Speech after oath taking ceremony in Tehran https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/463741/Raisi-officially-takes-oath-of-office-as-Iran-s-president

Kyūichi Tokuda photo
Kim Stanley Robinson photo
Douglas MacArthur photo