Famous quotes containing the words public opinion, public, opinion and/or polls:
“Constitutional statutes ... which embody the settled public opinion of the people who enacted them and whom they are to govern—can always be enforced. But if they embody only the sentiments of a bare majority, pronounced under the influence of a temporary excitement, they will, if strenuously opposed, always fail of their object; nay, they are likely to injure the cause they are framed to advance.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“... until both employers’ and workers’ groups assume responsibility for chastising their own recalcitrant children, they can vainly bay the moon about “ignorant” and “unfair” public criticism. Moreover, their failure to impose voluntarily upon their own groups codes of decency and honor will result in more and more necessity for government control.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“Turning popular opinion upside down does not make an original.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“The right to vote, or equal civil rights, may be good demands, but true emancipation begins neither at the polls nor in courts. It begins in woman’s soul.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)