Popular Opinion Quotes

Turning popular opinion upside down does not make an original. ~ Franz Grillparzer

Public opinion is the thermometer a monarch should constantly consult. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

The intellectual's hostility to the businessman presents no mystery, as the two have, by function, wholly different standards. While the businessman's motto is the customer is always right, the intellectual's task is to preserve his perceived standards against the weight of popular opinion. ~ Bertrand De Jouvenel

Contrary to popular opinion, the hustle is not a new dance step - it is an old business procedure. ~ Fran Lebowitz

It is impossible to stand upright when one plants his roots in the shifting sands of popular opinion and approval. Needed is the courage of a Daniel, an Abinadi, a Moroni, or a Joseph Smith in order for us to hold strong and fast to that which we know is right. They had the courage to do not that which was easy but that which was right.
We will all face fear, experience ridicule, and meet opposition. Let us
all of us
have the courage to defy the consensus, the courage to stand for principle. Courage, not compromise, brings the smile of God's approval. Courage becomes a living and an attractive virtue when it is regarded not only as a willingness to die manfully but also as the determination to live decently. As we move forward, striving to live as we should, we will surely receive help from the Lord and can find comfort in His words ~ Thomas S. Monson

Noah walked with God; he didn't only preach righteousness, he acted it. He went through water and didn't melt. He breasted the current of the popular opinion of his day, scorning alike the hatred and ridicule of the scoffers who mocked at the thought of there being but one way of salvation. ~ Charles Studd

Don't ... depend on current fashion or ... popular opinion. ~ John F. Nash

There is a very popular opinion that choosing life is inherently superior to choosing death. This belief that life is
inherently preferable to death is one of the most widespread superstitions. This bias constitutes one of the most obstinate mythologies of the human species. ~ Mitchell Heisman

No written law has ever been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion. ~ Carrie Chapman Catt

It seems to make little sense how a person's self-worth or self-confidence should be wrapped up in how much their jacket is worth or what shoe they are wearing. Does a person's round or pointy-tip shoe really say anything of value about who a person is?
It seems that true luxury lies in a freedom from needing that red-bottom shoe, that handbag with all the tiny initials and big price tag, or the latest trend to know that a person truly matters. True luxury seems to lie in the separation of confidence and materialism.
Authentic luxury flourishes from the untying of self-worth from popular opinion. ~ Ann Brasco

One can only return to the fact that even the most ordinary, good-hearted, intelligent people are literally prone to believing the most blatantly nonsensical untruths. And this comes from the realization that there are some opinions and some beliefs so incredibly inane, we may actually on occasion feel insane for not believing them; and that is probably because in giving the benefit of the doubt we self-doubt, we convince ourselves into lame passivity and blind acceptance, we tell ourselves, 'Maybe I'm just missing something here. ~ Criss Jami

1) Leopardskin is always a neutral.
2) You can get away with nearly anything if you wear the thing with black opaque tights and boots.
3) Contrary to popular opinion, a belt is often not a good friend to a lady. Indeed, in many circumstances, it acts merely as a visual aid to help the onlooker settle the question: "Which half is fatter - the bottom or the top?"
4) Bright red is a neutral.
5) Sellotape is NOT strong enough to mend a hole in the crotch of a pair of tights.
6) You should NOT buy an outfit if you have to strike a sexy pose in the changing-room mirror to make it look good. On the other hand, if you immediately start dancing the minute you put it on, buy it, however much it costs: unless it's lots, in which case, you can't, so don't. Fashion magazines will NEVER say, "Actually, don't buy it if you can't afford it." Neither will your friends. I am probably the only person who will EVER say it to you. You're welcome. ~ Caitlin Moran

Make notes - I've lost more material than I've ever written. Contrary to popular opinion, it's not still up there in one's brain. It's in outer space and it ain't coming back. ~ Judith Guest

Contrary to popular opinion, the most important characteristic of a godly mother is not her relationship with her children. It is her love for her husband. The love between husband and wife is the real key to a thriving family. A healthy home environment cannot be built exclusively on the parents' love for their children. The properly situated family has marriage at the center; families shouldn't revolve around the children. ~ John F. MacArthur Jr.

In sum, the purpose is to contest the popular view, because popular opinions are so frequently found to be untimely, misled (by propaganda), or plainly wrong. ~ Humphrey B. Neill

Compromise, contrary to popular opinion, does not mean selling out one's principles. Compromise means working out differences to forge a solution which fits the diversity of the body politic. ~ Madeleine M. Kunin

There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion. ~ Winston S. Churchill

Definitions, contrary to popular opinion, tell us nothing about things. They only describe people's linguistic habits; that is, they tell us what noises people make under what conditions. ~ S.I. Hayakawa

Always support younger writers, and do all you can to nourish that spirit of creativity, and original risk. The unique manner of literary innovation that younger writers may engage in, ultimately is priceless. Writers, poets and authors are the spokespersons for ours and the next generations. Support them, mentor them, protect them from the viciousness of popular opinion, which is generally nothing more than censorship wearing the cloak of righteous indignation. ~ ~Theresa Griffin Kennedy~

And it is long since I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value. ~ Alexander Hamilton

Their preservation depends upon a sentiment. As sentiment never yet annihilated a paying industry, we cannot hope to stay, wholly, the ax and saw of the lumberman. But popular opinion, combined with action, if directed intelligently towards the setting apart of some one section of the noble redwood forests ... will, I believe, save for our present delight and for that of the generations who come after us, at least one grand forest of the Sequoia sempervirens such as the world cannot show elsewhere, such as a thousand years cannot reproduce. ~ Frank Howard Clark

Contrary to popular opinion, 'Leave it to Beaver' was not a documentary. ~ Stephanie Coontz

(John) Adams acknowledged that he had made himself obnoxious to many of his colleagues, who regarded him as a one-man bonfire of the vanities. This never troubled Adams, who in his more contrarian moods claimed that his unpopularity provided clinching evidence that his position was principled, because it was obvious that he was not courting popular opinion. His alienation, therefore, was a measure of his integrity. ~ Joseph J. Ellis

In my view the study of fairy origins assumes a greater degree of importance than popular opinion is wont to concede to it. Indeed, the ideas associated with it strike at the very roots of human belief and primitive methods of reasoning. It is scarcely to be questioned that the explanation of fairy origins is of the utmost value to the better comprehension of primitive religion. Later it will be made clear that, for the writer at least, the whole tradition of Faerie reveals quite numerous and excellent proofs of its former existence as a primitive and separate cult and faith, more particularly as regards its appearance and tradition in these islands. ~ Lewis Spence

Contrary to popular opinion or the escapist trends of society, false hope is in no way better than a harsh truth. A harsh truth is painful to accept, but there's healing at the end. False hope, on the other hand, is a very dangerous thing that offers no reward. Not immediately, nor with the passage of time. It never pays off. ~ Northern Adams

It requires ages to destroy a popular opinion. ~ Voltaire

In America, educators punish those who actually think for themselves. There is only acceptance for popular opinion. ~ Bryant H. McGill

The left has lost touch with popular opinion, thereby making it possible for the right to present itself as the party of common sense. ~ Christopher Lasch

Men and women must be educated, in a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft

By the time I finally finished writing The End of Science , I'd concluded that people don't give a shit about science.... They don't give a shit about quantum mechanics or the Big Bang. As a mass society, our interest in those subjects is trivial. People are much more interested in making money, finding love, and attaining status and prestige. So I'm not really sure if a post-science world would be any different than the world of today. ~ John Horgan

Contrary to popular opinion, Christians are not nice polite people who never get angry with one another. Those are not the virtues of God's people. Our virtues are truth-telling, kindness, forgiveness and yes, even anger-as long as it is the anger that is part of true love-through which we move closer to one another and to the God who has shown us how it is done. ~ Barbara Brown Taylor

Are right and wrong convertible terms, dependant upon popular opinion? ~ William Lloyd Garrison

The office of the leisure class in social evolution is to retard the movement and to conserve what is obsolescent. This proposition is by no means novel; it has long been one of the commonplaces of popular opinion. ~ Thorstein Veblen

Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion. ~ Jack Kerouac

The fact - not theory - that evolution has occurred and the Darwinian theory as to how it occurred have become so confused in popular opinion that the distinction must be stressed. ~ George Gaylord Simpson

I don't hold myself dictated to by what everyone is saying, by the tabloids or popular opinion. I don't like bourgeois values. I say you find your own way to live. ~ James Salter

Live by truth, not by popular opinion. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

I know how easy it is for some minds to glide along with the current of popular opinion, where influence, respectability, and all those motives which tend to seduce the human heart are brought to bear. ~ Benjamin F. Wade

Despite popular opinion, there are no important parallels between Madonna and Monroe, who was a virtuoso comedienne but who was in secure, depressive, passive-aggressive, and infuriatingly obstructionist in her career habits. Madonna is manic, perfectionist, workaholic. Monroe abused alcohol and drugs, while Madonna shuns them. Monroe had a tentative, melting, dreamy solipsism; Madonna has Judy Holliday's wisecracking smart mouth and Joan Crawford's steel will and bossy, circus master managerial competence. ~ Camille Paglia

Of all the ingenious mistakes into which erring man has fallen, perhaps none have been so pernicious in their consequences, or have brought so many evils into the world, as the popular opinion that the way of the transgressor is pleasant and easy. ~ Hosea Ballou

He kept himself in line with popular opinion, which meant popular prejudice. ~ John Howard Griffin

Contrary to popular opinion, my dad was not a lazy man. He was not lazy at all, for instance, when it came to Going Places In His Truck. He was also very industrious about Preparing To Go Camping. And if something really interested him, he would work on it all day. ~ Haven Kimmel

Contrary to popular opinion, manners are not a luxury good that's interesting only to those who can afford to think about them. The essence of good manners is not exclusivity, nor exclusion of any kind, but sensitivity. To practice good manners is to confer upon others not just consideration but esteem; it's to bathe others in a commodity best described by noted speller Aretha Franklin. ~ Henry Alford

people coming out of church
conversing about the sermon
sniffing at the autumn air
something in the papers about forces of popular opinion
and values which are unto our nation

what is
holding you back, Catullus?
why don't you go and die?
the stalks of the potato-plants
are rotting fast this year
only October now

this evening away
A boy comes out of the wood,
crossbow on his shoulder ~ Pentti Saarikoski

Either one or the other [analysis or synthesis] may be direct or indirect. The direct procedure is when the point of departure is known-direct synthesis in the elements of geometry. By combining at random simple truths with each other, more complicated ones are deduced from them. This is the method of discovery, the special method of inventions, contrary to popular opinion. ~ Andre Marie Ampere

But there is some connection between critically distancing oneself from prevailing popular opinion and a level of moral conscientiousness that comes to more than obeying the voice of "the Anyone." Crucial to genuine moral conscience is the refusal to lose oneself in the anonymity of what "the Anyone" dictates, a willingness to take one's stand aqainst what is fashionable, to criticize public opinion for the sake of the community, to judge what is right beyond the horizon of the taken-for-granted. That one think for oneself, of course, is no guarantee that one's judgement will be wise. If not thinking can lead to great evil, it does not follow that thinking can prevent it. But at least the habit of critical reflection puts an obstacle in the way of banal evil, for the thoughtful individual may have afterthoughts about saying or doing what he cannot account for. Moral conscience, Arendt contends, is a 'side-effect' of the thinking ego, of the self who would, like Socrates, prefer that 'the multitudes disagree with me than that I, being one, should be out of harmony with and contradict myself. ~ Lawrence Vogel

Contrary to popular opinion, a man can shut love out if he wants to. But to do so, he must free himself not only from the woman who has bewitched him but also from the third person in the story, the ghost who has put temptation in his way. ~ Orhan Pamuk

It's painful to listen to the barking of dogs. ~ Nizar Qabbani

I learnt that popular opinion is not necessarily the right opinion. ~ Israelmore Ayivor

In every age there has been a stream of popular opinion that has carried all before it, and given a family character, as it were, to the century. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft

They'd read about this in class, how stereotypes distorted, affected, reflected reality. Asians were peaceful. Gays were nonviolent. As were women. Blacks (and sometimes Mexicans) were rarely accused of hate crimes for a number of reasons, but the underlying logic was that they were naturally predisposed to violence and mischief, and so seldom was any attack on whites motivated by hate. Contrarily, it was extremely easy to claim, and prove, that a white perpetrated a hate crime. In fact, popular opinion among the liberals was that conservatives were motivated by hate in everything they did wrong: hiring practices, legal negotiations, and any criminal activity affecting blacks, Mexicans, or gays. If Denver decided that Daron had intended to send a message of terror, then Daron's every denial must have sounded like an attempt to protect his co-conspirators. ~ T. Geronimo Johnson

Being a prophet in the wilderness speaking truth to power typically leads to poverty and punishment. It is far easier to follow the lucrative trade winds of popular opinion but withheld honesty results in forgotten words. ~ Stewart Stafford

Contrary to popular opinion, classical music does not have to be enjoyed amid exclusive circles, there need not be any snobbishness attached to it. It's there for everyone. I play for the people. ~ Andre Rieu

The writer who position is Christian, and probably also the writer whose position is not, will begin to wonder at this point if there could not be some ugly correlation between our unparalleled prosperity and the stridency of these demands for a literature that shows us the joy of life. He may at least be permitted to ask if these screams for joy would be quite so piercing if joy were really more abundant in our prosperous society. ~ Flannery O'Connor

It is not always easy to diagnose. The simplest form of stupidity - the mumbling, nose-picking, stolid incomprehension - can be detected by anyone. But the stupidity which disguises itself as thought, and which talks so glibly and eloquently, indeed never stops talking, in every walk of life is not so easy to identify, because it marches under a formidable name, which few dare attack. It is called Popular Opinion ... ~ Robertson Davies

Courage doesn't wait until situational factors turn in one's favor. It doesn't wait until a plan is perfectly formed. It doesn't wait until the tide of popular opinion is turned. Courage only waits for one thing: a green light from God. And when God gives the go, it's full steam ahead, no questions asked. ~ Mark Batterson

The attitude of the city on his action was of no importance to him, not because he was going to leave the city, but because any outside attitude on the situation seemed superficial. He was completely indifferent to popular opinion. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

Worship of society and popular opinion is idolatry. ~ Swami Vivekananda

The sand in the hourglass runs from one compartment to the other, marking the passage of moments with something constant and tangible.
If you watch the flowing sand, you might see time itself riding the granules.
Contrary to popular opinion, time is not an old white-haired man, but a laughing child.
And time sings. ~ Vera Nazarian

The Christian writer will feel that in the greatest depth of vision, moral judgment will be implicit, and that when we are invited to represent the country according to survey, what we are asked to do is to separate mystery from manners and judgment from vision, in order to produce something a little more palatable to the modern temper. We are asked to form our consciences in the light of statistics, which is to establish the relative as absolute. For many this may be a convenience, since we don't live in an age of settled belief; but it cannot be a convenience, it cannot even be possible, for the writer who is a Catholic. He will feel that any long-continued service to it will produce a soggy, formless, and sentimental literature, one that will provide a sense of spiritual purpose for those who connect the spirit with romanticism and a sense of joy for those who confuse that virtue with satisfaction. The storyteller is concerned with what is; but if what is is what can be determined by survey, then the disciples of Dr. Kinsey and Dr. Gallup are sufficient for the day thereof. ~ Flannery O'Connor

Of people that hold an opinion that is popular and that makes them look good: I cannot take your opinions seriously. If you are of a persuasion that is popular and that makes you look like a better person, then you hold that persuasion as a result of no inner convictions of your own; rather, you hold that persuasion as a result of self-consciousness. It takes courage and inner strength to hold convictions that go against popular opinion and that go against what would make you feel accepted in the eyes of most. There are three levels to this sort of consciousness: the first level dictates that you are simply unaware and you go about with daily life with no presumptions, simply going with the flow of everything. The second level is the one that the current generation mostly belongs to: the level of those who believe themselves to be enlightened, awakened. This second level belongs to those who would call those belonging to the first level as "sheep". This second level belongs to those who would believe that there are only two levels: one belonging to sheep and another belonging to them. They are unaware of the third level. But the third level of consciousness is the level that belongs not to what those on the lesser level would call as "sheep" and also not belonging to the second level of those who believe themselves to be free thinkers. At this third level, are those who see plainly that the free thinkers of today are simply a different herd of sheep, who all hold a shared opi ~ C. JoyBell C.

There's something about writing that demands a leave-taking, an abandonment of the world, paradoxically, in order to see it clearly. This retreat has to be accomplished without severing the vital connection to the world, and to people, that feeds the imagination. It's a difficult balance. And here is where these ruminations about writing touch on morality. The same constraints to writing well are also constraints to living fully. Not to be a slave to fashion or commerce, not to succumb to arid self-censorship, not to bow to popular opinion - what is all that but a description of the educated, enlightened life? ~ Jeffrey Eugenides

Meditation on any theme, if positive and honest, inevitably separates him who does the meditating from the opinion prevailing around him, from that which ... can be called "public" or "popular" opinion. ~ Jose Ortega Y Gasset

He felt something dark and leering in the manner with which people spoke of Prescott's genius; as if they were not doing homage to Prescott, but spitting upon genius. For once, Keating could not follow people; it was too clear, even to him, that public favor had ceased being a recognition of merit, that it had become almost a brand of shame. ~ Ayn Rand

Contrary to popular opinion, the Constitution was not - and is not - a grant of rights to the citizenry. Instead, the Constitution is a "barbed-wire entanglement" designed to interfere with, restrict, and impede government officials in the exercise of political power. ~ Jacob G. Hornberger

Seeing, contrary to popular wisdom, isn't believing. It's where belief stops, because it isn't needed any more. ~ Terry Pratchett

It is usually a mistake to believe that any opinion or situation is objectively good or bad, since everything depends on the perspective of the viewer. ~ Lama Surya Das

Absolute truth is not dependent upon public opinion or popularity. Now what is this truth? It is His gospel. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ. ~ Dieter F. Uchtdorf

People will, in a great degree, and not without reason, form their opinion of you upon that which they have of your friends; and there is a Spanish proverb which says vry justly, 'Tell me whom you live with, and I will tell you who you are.' ~ Lord Chesterfield

It isn't an easy job to paint oneself - at any rate if it is to be different from a photograph. And you see - this, in my opinion, is the advantage that impressionism possesses over all the other things; it is not banal, and one seeks after a deeper resemblance than the photograph. ~ Vincent Van Gogh

The priest therefore saw what the anchorite could not. That God needs no witness. Neither to himself nor against. The truth is rather that if there were no God then there could be no witness for there could be no identity to the world but only each man's opinion of it. The priest saw that there is no man who is elect because there is no man who is not. To God every man is a heretic. ~ Cormac McCarthy

Yes, Melanie had been there that day with a sword in her small hand, ready to do battle for her. And now, as Scarlett looked sadly back, she realized that Melanie had always been there beside her with a sword in her hand, unobtrusive as her own shadow, loving her, fighting for her with blind passionate loyalty, fighting Yankees, fire, hunger, poverty, public opinion and even her beloved blood kin. Scarlett felt her courage and self-confidence ooze from her as she realized that the sword which had flashed between her and the world was sheathed forever. ~ Margaret Mitchell

People forget that Mozart wrote for commissions. There's a thing in psychology where they think if it's popular, it can't be serious. ~ Anthony Hopkins

I no longer believe love works like a fairy tale but like farming. Most of it is just getting up early and tilling the soil and then praying for rain. But if we do the work, we just might wake up one day to find an endless field of crops rolling into the horizon. In my opinion, that's even better than a miracle. I'd rather earn the money than win the lottery because there's no joy in a reward unless it comes at the end of a story. ~ Donald Miller

The first time I saw your face, my lips said, "hello" and my heart said, "that's your wife. ~ J.A. ANUM

The spiritual differs from the religious in being able to endure isolation. The rank of a spiritual person is proportionate to his strength for enduring isolation, whereas we religious people are constantly in need of 'the others,' the herd. We religious folks die, or despair, if we are not reassured by being in the assembly, of the same opinion as the congregation, and so on. But the Christianity of the New Testament is precisely related to the isolation of the spiritual man. ~ Søren Kierkegaard

The difficult part in an argument is not to defend one's opinion but rather to know it. ~ Andre Maurois

You're only popular with anorexia. ~ Tori Amos

Pope John Paul would be more popular if he called himself Pope John Paul George and Ringo. ~ Paul Krassner

To venture an opinion is like moving a piece at chess: it may be taken, but it forms the beginning of a game that is won. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

When you do the first half of life well, you have a good sense of yourself. ~ Richard Rohr

I mean Dark Phoenix series, the way it was done, they didn't do it justice in the past movies, in my personal opinion. I just like the X-Men universe. ~ Timothy Miller

I wouldn't care to shoot my own townsmen over a difference of opinion about politics. Keep 'em yourself if you think you need 'em; but I suggest you'll be better off to put 'em away where you can't get at 'em. The trouble with a pistol is that if you show it, you've got to use it, and once you use it you've committed yourself. ~ Kenneth Roberts

Thou canst remove out of the way many useless things among those which disturb thee, for they lie entirely in thy opinion; and thou wilt then gain for thyself ample space by comprehending the whole universe in thy mind, and by contemplating the eternity of time, and observing the rapid change of every several thing, how short is the time from birth to dissolution, and the illimitable time before birth as well as the equally boundless time after dissolution. All ~ Marcus Aurelius

For all the talk about the merging of film and video game, and for all its inevitability, perhaps the secret of true convergence lies not in an external reality , but in an internal truth: What kids seek from video games is what we all seek from our own distractions--be they movies, radio, comic books, literature, or art: an escape from the mundane to the sublime, where our imaginations make of us heroes, lovers, warriors, and gods. ~ Devin C. Griffiths

I've fought for and against pretty much every cause there is. There will always be war of some kind. At first it was over fertile soil and good water, then precious metal and then the most popular version of human disagreement, 'My God is better than your God.' Whether you draw your faith from Jeremiah and Jesus, Allah and Muhammad or Brahma and Buddha, it doesn't matter. Someone will tell you you're wrong, and he'll fight you over it. Me, I believe in aliens, and to hell with all earthly gods. In the grand scheme of a trillion planets in the universe we're just not that damn important anyway. And humans are rotten to the core. ~ David Baldacci

IX. THE PRICE OF DISASTER

The price of the disaster of slavery and civil war was the necessity of quickly assimilating into American democracy a mass of ignorant laborers in whose hands alone for the moment lay the power of preserving the ideals of popular government; of overthrowing a slave economy and establishing upon it an industry primarily for the profit of the workers. It was this price which in the end America refused to pay and today suffers for that refusal. ~ W.E.B. Du Bois

On April 1, armed SA men took up positions in front of Jewish businesses and tried to prevent customers from spending money in them. Some troops painted anti-Semitic slogans and Stars of David on display windows; others were content to hold up signs calling for a boycott and to curse at Jewish businessmen. Some areas also saw looting and acts of violence.
All in all, this display of activism made a very negative impression on most people, and the thuggish SA men with their uneducated bellowing were left even less popular among the general population than they had been before. Although very few Germans openly declared their solidarity with their Jewish fellow citizens, the boycott did not, as it was intended to do, set German gentiles against German Jews. On the contrary, ordinary people felt sorry for them, and if reports by the Nazis, who were disappointed by the boycott, are to be believed, the amount of commerce done afterward by Jewish-owned business did not decline at all. ~ Rudolph Herzog

For, contrary to the common opinion, it is the wealthy who are greedy of wealth; while the populace are to be gained by talking to them about liberty, their unknown god. And so much are they enchanted by the words liberty, freedom, and such like, that the wise can go to the poor, rob them of what little they have, dismiss them with a hearty kick, and win their hearts and their votes for ever, if only they will assure them that the treatment which they have received is called liberty. ~ Arthur Machen

I think I'm bad luck for Tiger because he missed the cut in Charlotte with me. But yeah, those are two of the best players of all time. Tiger's the best player of all time in my opinion, so when he's not in the field, it's a relief because he's such a great player. ~ Webb Simpson

We arranged to spend the next day, a Sunday, looking at apartments together, followed by a round of tennis, since we both played. Before Nancy left the Pilot that night, I said to her lasciviously - I don't know what possessed me - "Have you ever tried a comedian before?" Which was either very sexy or very creepy, depending on your opinion of me. She just stared at me, betraying no emotion, and said, "I hope you have a racket. I'm pretty good." Our ~ Martin Short

A brave captain of Spahis cannot risk this, even to gratify a pretty woman, which is, in my opinion, one of the most sacred obligations in the world. ~ Alexander Dumas

Today, we have many ways of defining success in life. Some define it as being a sports hero, others as being wealthy, others as being popular and well liked, and still others as being happy. How does God define success? He defines it as being spiritually mature! ~ Dr. Todd M. Fink

I feel the president is ignoring the opinion of many in the U.S. and alienating the rest of the world. My comments were made in frustration, and one of the privileges of being an American is you are free to voice your own point of view. ~ Natalie Maines

The more pressing question, of course, is how we can communicate our love after kids keep acting up even when we think they ought to know better. (We've certainly told them enough times!) Here it's common to assume that they're "testing limits." This is a very popular phrase in the discipline field and it's often used as a justification for parents to impose more, or tighter, limits. Sometimes the assumption that kids are testing us even becomes a rationalization for punishing them. But my suspicion is that, by misbehaving, children may be testing something else entirely - namely, the unconditionality of our love. Perhaps they're acting in unacceptable ways to see if we'll stop accepting them. ~ Alfie Kohn

The people who review my books, generally, are kind of youngish culture writers who aspire to write books, or write opinion pieces about what they think of Neil Young, or why they quit watching ER or whatever. And because of that, I think there's a lot of people who write about my books with the premise of, "Why this guy? Why not me?" ~ Chuck Klosterman

Most grain foods, whether we're talking about quinoa, amaranth, the very popular grains of the day - the reality is they still are associated with a carbohydrate surge. ~ David Perlmutter

When I want your opinion I'll give it to you. ~ Laurence J. Peter

Every man has a choice between love of truth and love of repose. Love of repose brings him a solid reputation and peaceful life; love of truth keeps him in suspense. A man who loves truth respects the highest law of his being. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Michele Bachmann is always a great person to go to for an opinion about anything. She has a very active and interesting mind. ~ Henry Rollins