William Rounseville Alger Quotes

The court of public opinion is open 24 hours a day.

Public opinion is the most potent monarch this world knows.

What the multitude says is so, or soon will be.

Public opinion, a vulgar, impertinent, anonymous tyrant who deliberately makes life unpleasant for anyone who is not content to be the average man.

In America there is not one single element of civilization that is not made to depend, in the end, upon public opinion.

Public opinion is a permeating influence, and it exacts obedience to itself; it requires us to drink other men's thoughts, to speak other men's words, to follow other men's habits.

Public opinion is stronger than the legislature, and nearly as strong as the ten commandments.

We are ruled by public opinion, not by statute law.

Public opinion in this country is everything.

Public opinion has become the public law

Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed. Consequently he who moulds public sentiment, goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. He makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to be executed.

Today's public opinion, though it may appear as light as air, may be tomorrow's legislation-for better or for worse.

Opinion has ever been stronger than law.

The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.

In America, public opinion is the leader.

Public opinion shapes our destinies and guides the progress of human affairs.

Morality is a test of our conformity rather than our integrity.

In the United States, the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own.

Americans are apt to be unduly interested in discovering what average opinion believes average opinion to be.

An animal takes freely anything that it wishes: it commits no sin and is not held responsible for its action because it knows no better. But as soon as the idea of 'mine' and 'thine' has been imprinted upon our consciousness, then also the responsibility comes.

My message isn't perfectly defined. I have, as a human being, fallen to peer pressure.

Public opinion is no more than this. What people think that other people think.

There is a court to which I shall appeal: the court of public opinion.

All law is a dead letter without public opinion behind it.

Towering over Presidents and State Governors, over Congress and State Legislatures, over conventions and the vast machinery of party, public opinion stands out in the United States, as the great source of Power.