Quotes about popularity
page 5

John Birtwhistle photo

“Clare's essay was itself an attempt at popularity through essayistic journalism.”

John Birtwhistle (1946) English poet

Clare's 'Popularity in Authorship (1824)

George S. Patton photo

“It is a popular idea that a man is a hero just because he was killed in action. Rather, I think, a man is frequently a fool when he gets killed.”

George S. Patton (1885–1945) United States Army general

Speech at the Hatch Memorial Shell, Boston, Massachusetts (7 June 1945), quoted in The Last Days of Patton (1981), p. 85, by Ladislas Farago and The Patton Papers: 1940-1945 (1974), p. 721, edited by Martin Blumenson.

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
James D. Watson photo
Pauline Kael photo
Margaret Fuller photo

“Beware of over-great pleasure in being popular or even beloved.”

Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) American feminist, poet, author, and activist

Letter to her brother, (20 December 1840) as quoted in The Feminist Papers (1973) by Alice Rossi.

Donald J. Trump photo

“And you know we have a tremendous disadvantage in the electoral college, popular vote is much easier.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2017, July, 2017 National Scout Jamboree (July 24, 2017)

Eliezer Yudkowsky photo

“If cryonics were a scam it would have far better marketing and be far more popular.”

Eliezer Yudkowsky (1979) American blogger, writer, and artificial intelligence researcher

A comment on reddit (2009) http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/7g5ea/if_you_dont_believe_in_god_or_an_afterlife_would/c06ktil

Akira Ifukube photo
Brooks Adams photo
Mario Bunge photo

“At all times pseudoprofound aphorisms have been more popular than rigorous arguments.”

Mario Bunge (1919) Argentine philosopher and physicist

Evaluating Philosophies (2012), p. xiv.
2010s

Derren Brown photo
Angela Davis photo
Koenraad Elst photo
Will Cuppy photo
Henry David Thoreau photo

“Nothing is so much to be feared as fear. Atheism may comparatively be popular with God himself.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

September 7, 1851
Journals (1838-1859)

Dana Gioia photo

“I want a poetry that can learn as much from popular culture as from serious culture. A poetry that seeks the pleasure and emotionality of the popular arts without losing the precision, concentration, and depth that characterize high art. I want a literature that addresses a diverse audience distinguished for its intelligence, curiosity, and imagination rather than its professional credentials. I want a poetry that risks speaking to the fullness of our humanity, to our emotions as well as to our intellect, to our senses as well as our imagination and intuition. Finally I hope for a more sensual and physical art — closer to music, film, and painting than to philosophy or literary theory. Contemporary American literary culture has privileged the mind over the body. The soul has become embarrassed by the senses. Responding to poetry has become an exercise mainly in interpretation and analysis. Although poetry contains some of the most complex and sophisticated perceptions ever written down, it remains an essentially physical art tied to our senses of sound and sight. Yet, contemporary literary criticism consistently ignores the sheer sensuality of poetry and devotes its considerable energy to abstracting it into pure intellectualization. Intelligence is an irreplaceable element of poetry, but it needs to be vividly embodied in the physicality of language. We must — as artists, critics, and teachers — reclaim the essential sensuality of poetry. The art does not belong to apes or angels, but to us. We deserve art that speaks to us as complete human beings. Why settle for anything less?”

Dana Gioia (1950) American writer

"Paradigms Lost," interview with Gloria Brame, ELF: Eclectic Literary Forum (Spring 1995)
Interviews

James Madison photo
Winston S. Churchill photo
Patricia Conde photo

“The popularity serves to help people.”

Patricia Conde (1979) Spanish actress

La popularidad sirve para ayudar a la gente.
blog oficial Patricia Conde

Matthew Hayden photo
Frank Chodorov photo

“Popular suffrage is in itself no guarantee of freedom. People can vote themselves into slavery.”

Frank Chodorov (1887–1966) American libertarian thinker

Source: The Income Tax: Root of All Evil (1954), p. 61

Ellen Willis photo
William Ewart Gladstone photo
Carl Schurz photo
Andrew Dickson White photo
Revilo P. Oliver photo
John Magufuli photo

“We are following the policies carried out by the new government. President Magufuli has the support of Tanzanian people. He is also very popular in other African countries. Now we see the optimism in Tanzania and this is very positive.”

John Magufuli (1959) Tanzanian politician

Turkish Ambassador to Tanzania, H.E Yasemin Eralp on President John Magufuli while talking about relationships with Tanzania and Turkey
Interview with the Turkish Ambassador to Tanzania http://allafrica.com/stories/201602291512.html
About

Eric Blom photo
Henry Adams photo
Perry Anderson photo
Grant Morrison photo
Matt Groening photo
George W. Bush photo
Jiang Zemin photo
John C. Baez photo
Calvin Coolidge photo

“No one can examine this record and escape the conclusion that in the great outline of its principles the Declaration was the result of the religious teachings of the preceding period. The profound philosophy which Jonathan Edwards applied to theology, the popular preaching of George Whitefield, had aroused the thought and stirred the people of the Colonies in preparation for this great event. No doubt the speculations which had been going on in England, and especially on the Continent, lent their influence to the general sentiment of the times. Of course, the world is always influenced by all the experience and all the thought of the past. But when we come to a contemplation of the immediate conception of the principles of human relationship which went into the Declaration of Independence we are not required to extend our search beyond our own shores. They are found in the texts, the sermons, and the writings of the early colonial clergy who were earnestly undertaking to instruct their congregations in the great mystery of how to live. They preached equality because they believed in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. They justified freedom by the text that we are all created in the divine image, all partakers of the divine spirit.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Speech on the Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (1926)

Woody Allen photo

“I can't get with any religion that advertises in Popular Mechanics.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Annie Hall (1977)

George Howard Earle, Jr. photo
Laurie Penny photo
Rollo May photo
Joseph Goebbels photo
Everett Dean Martin photo
Thomas Fuller (writer) photo
Peter Tatchell photo

“Debates and parliamentary divisions are fruitless cosmetic exercises given the Tories' present Commons majority. And if we recognise this, we are either forced to accept Tory edicts as a fait accompli or we must look to new more militant forms of extra-Parliamentary opposition which involve mass popular participation and challenge the Government's right to rule.”

Peter Tatchell (1952) British gay rights activist

Article in London Labour Briefing, November 1981. When quoted in the House of Commons, Labour Party leader Michael Foot denounced him as the Labour candidate for Bermondsey. Source: Tatchell, The Battle for Bermondsey (Heretic Books, 1983) page 53.

George Fitzhugh photo
Anthony Burgess photo
Conor Oberst photo

“Honesty" "Accuracy" is just "Popular Opinion.”

Conor Oberst (1980) American musician

Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground (2002)

Russell Brand photo

“Only Boris concerns me. When I used to watch Have I Got News For You, which as a kid I was proud to watch, full stop, I loved it when Boris Johnson came on. I didn't know who he was or what he did, I didn't think about it, I just liked him. I liked his voice, his manner, his name, his vocabulary, his self-effacing charm, humour and, of course, his hair. He has catwalk hair. Vogue cover hair, Rumplestiltskin spun it out of straw, straight-out-of-bed, drop-dead, gold-thread hair. He was always at ease with Deayton, Merton and Hislop, equal to their wit and always gave a great account of himself. "This bloke is cool," I thought. As I grew up I found out that he was an old Etonian, bully-boy, Spectator-editing Tory.
"That's weird," I thought. While I was busy becoming a world-class junkie, the man from HIGNFY became mayor. People like Boris Johnson; I like the HIGNFY Boris. He is the most popular politician in the country. Well, not in the country, on the television. There is a difference. Most people, of course, haven't met him, they've seen him on the telly. When I met Boris in his office, the nucleus of his dominion, I glanced at his library. Among the Wodehouses and the Euripides there were, of course, fierce economic tomes, capitalist manuals, bibles of domination. Eye-to-eye, the bumbling bonhomie appeared to be a lacquer of likability over a living obelisk of corporate power.”

Russell Brand (1975) British comedian, actor, and author

Russell Brand - The Guardian (2013)

Joseph Chamberlain photo

“During the last 100 years, the House of Lords has never contributed one iota to popular liberties or popular freedom, or done anything to advance the common weal; but during that time it has protected every abuse and sheltered every privilege.”

Joseph Chamberlain (1836–1914) British businessman, politician, and statesman

Speech at Birmingham, 4th August 1884, quoted in "The House of Lords: A handbook for Liberal speakers, writers and workers" (Liberal Publication Department, 1910), p. 96.
1880s

Sam Harris photo
Jonah Goldberg photo
Donald J. Trump photo
Hans von Seeckt photo
James A. Garfield photo

“Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

Letter accepting the Republican nomination to run for President (12 July 1880)
1880s
Variant: Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained.

Philip Schaff photo

“Today perhaps the most popular organizational theory is institutional theory.”

Richard M. Burton, ‎Bo Eriksen, ‎Dorthe Døjbak Håkonsson (2006). Organization Design: The Evolving State-of-the-Art. p. 28

Harry V. Jaffa photo
Julie Andrews photo
Venkatraman Ramakrishnan photo
John Varley photo

“Just because Beethoven doesn’t sound like currently popular art doesn’t mean his music is worthless.”

John Varley (1947) American science fiction author

"The Phantom of Kansas" (1976), The World Treasury of Science Fiction (ed. David Hartwell), p. 375

Baruch Spinoza photo
Will Eisner photo

“Baseball's popularity and, more so, it's revenues continue to increase.”

Andrew Zimbalist (1947) American economist

Source: Baseball And Billions - Updated edition - (1992), Chapter 8, The Future, p. 168.

Frances Kellor photo
Zbigniew Brzeziński photo
Charles Evans Hughes photo

“…[I]n three notable instances the Court has suffered severely from self-inflicted wounds. The first of these was the Dred Scott case. … There the Supreme Court decided that Dred Scott, a negro, not being a citizen could not sue in the United States Courts and that Congress could not prohibit slavery in the territories. … [T]he grave injury that the Court sustained through its decision has been universally recognized. Its action was a public calamity. … [W]idespread and bitter attacks upon the judges who joined in the decision undermined confidence in the Court. … It was many years before the Court, even under new judges, was able to retrieve its reputation.…[The second instance was] the legal tender cases decided in 1870. … From the standpoint of the effect on public opinion there can be no doubt that the reopening of the case was a serious mistake and the overruling in such a short time, and by one vote, of the previous decision shook popular respect for the Court.… [The third instance happened] [t]wenty-five years later, when the Court had recovered its prestige, [and] its action in the income tax cases gave occasion for a bitter assault. … [After questions about the validity of the income tax] had been reserved owing to an equal division of the Court, a reargument was ordered and in the second decision the act was held to be unconstitutional by a majority of one. Justice Jackson was ill at the time of the first argument but took part in the final decision, voting in favor of the validity of the statute. It was evident that the result [holding the statute invalid] was brought about by a change in the vote of one of the judges who had participated in the first decision. … [T]he decision of such an important question by a majority of one after one judge had changed his vote aroused a criticism of the Court which has never been entirely stilled.”

Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948) American judge

"The Supreme Court of the United States: Its Foundation, Methods and Achievements," Columbia University Press, p. 50 (1928). ISBN 1-893122-85-9.

Jakaya Kikwete photo

“That day may come. But I’m not seeing it coming soon. We are still strong enough; we’re still popular; I think we are doing the right things.”

Jakaya Kikwete (1950) Tanzanian politician and president

When asked if the Opposition wins the elections.
Interviews, Interview with Financial Times, 2007-10-04 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d8a07e28-72a3-11dc-b7ff-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check1/

Jean-François Revel photo

“Anti-Americanism thus defined is less a popular prejudice than a parti pris of the political, cultural and religious elites.”

Jean-François Revel (1924–2006) French writer and philosopher

Source: 2000s, Anti-Americanism (2003), p. 143

Fernand Léger photo

“One thinks with awe and longing of this real and extraordinary popularity of hers [Edna St. Vincent Millay’s]: if there were some poet—Frost, Stevens, Eliot—whom people still read in canoes!”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“Fifty Years of American Poetry”, p. 329
The Third Book of Criticism (1969)

Bryant Gumbel photo

“Scott, as you and I both know, a popular move these days is to make a titillating charge and then have the media create the frenzy. Given Kenneth Starr’s track record, should we suspect that he’s trying to do with innuendo that which he has been unable to do with evidence?”

Bryant Gumbel (1948) American sportscaster

To CBS News reporter Scott Pelley, January 21, 1998, Public Eye with Bryant Gumbel. Real Video http://www.mediaresearch.org/rm/projects/99/gumbel10/segment1.ram

“Like many popular best-sellers, he was a very sad and solemn man who took himself too seriously and his art not seriously enough.”

V.S. Pritchett (1900–1997) British writer and critic

"Rider Haggard: Still Riding", p. 25
The Tale Bearers: English and American Writers (1980)

Maxfield Parrish photo
John Buchan photo
Stanley Baldwin photo
Theodor Mommsen photo
Sean Connery photo

“I suppose more than anything else I'd like to be an old man with a good face, like Hitchcock or Picasso. They know that life is not just a popularity contest.”

Sean Connery (1930) Scottish actor and producer

Interview in the Saturday Evening Post (June 6, 1964).

Otto Weininger photo
Michael Löwy photo
Ernesto Che Guevara photo
Herbert Marcuse photo

“No matter how close and familiar the temple or cathedral were to the people who lived around them, they remained in terrifying or elevating contrast to the daily life of the slave, the peasant, and the artisan—and perhaps even to that of their masters. Whether ritualized or not, art contains the rationality of negation. In its advanced positions, it is the Great Refusal—the protest against that which is. The modes in which man and things are made to appear, to sing and sound and speak, are modes of refuting, breaking, and recreating their factual existence. But these modes of negation pay tribute to the antagonistic society to which they are linked. Separated from the sphere of labor where society reproduces itself and its misery, the world of art which they create remains, with all its truth, a privilege and an illusion. In this form it continues, in spite of all democratization and popularization, through the nineteenth and into the twentieth century. The “high culture” in which this alienation is celebrated has its own rites and its own style. The salon, the concert, opera. theater are designed to create and invoke another dimension of reality. Their attendance requires festive-like preparation; they cut off and transcend everyday experience. Now this essential gap between the arts and the order of the day, kept open in the artistic alienation, is progressively closed by the advancing technological society. And with its closing, the Great Refusal is in turn refused; the “other dimension” is absorbed into the prevailing state of affairs. The works of alienation are themselves incorporated into this society and circulate as part and parcel of the equipment which adorns and psychoanalyzes the prevailing state of affairs.”

Source: One-Dimensional Man (1964), pp. 63-64

Billy Joel photo
Anna Sui photo

“American television is popular everywhere and its what I grew up on.”

Anna Sui (1964) American fashion designer

New York Times Interview (November 11, 2010)

Perry Anderson photo
Roger Ebert photo
George William Curtis photo
Fisher Ames photo
Jesper Kyd photo

“Contrary to popular opinion, innovation without some standardized conceptual framework is tantamount to chaos.”

Bush, Stephen F., Keynote Speech, First IEEE International Conference on Communications 2012 Workshop on Telecommunications: From Research to Standards July 18, 2012.