#populace

It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising their sovereignty. ↗

— James Monroe

#corrupt #degenerate #exercising #ignorant #incapable

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. ↗

— H. L. Mencken

#aim #alarmed #endless #endless series #hence

No matter how much it's growing, the Internet still is a pretty specific demographic. It doesn't necessarily represent the general populace. ↗

— Andy Samberg

#general #growing #how #internet #matter

A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down. If it is a good book nothing can hurt him. If it is a bad book nothing can help him. ↗

— Edna St. Vincent Millay

#bad #before #book #down #good

People desire power. I don't know why they want it so. It seems to me it implies a hugely superior intellect which separates them from most of the populace. ↗

— F. Murray Abraham

#hugely #i #implies #intellect #know

Our society distributes itself into Barbarians, Philistines and Populace; and America is just ourselves with the Barbarians quite left out, and the Populace nearly. ↗

— Matthew Arnold

#barbarians #distributes #into #itself #just

What is especially important is addressing the question of how religion can be enforced through political means and what can be done to create a political environment that, on the one hand, acknowledges the role of religion in society, while on the other hand does not impose one religion on the populace at the expense of all others. ↗

— Tony Campolo

#create #does #done #enforced #environment

We have to raise the consciousness; the only way poets can change the world is to raise the consciousness of the general populace. ↗

— Lawrence Ferlinghetti

#change the world #consciousness #general #only #poets

Look, people need to conform the external reality they face daily with this subjective feeling they likewise experience constantly. To do this they have two options. First, they can achieve what passes for great things. Now the external reality matches their feeling; they really are better than the rest and maybe they'll even be remembered as such. These are the ambitious people, the overachievers. These are also, however, the people who go on these abominable talk shows where they can trade their psychoses for exposure on that box, modernity's ultimate achievement. Not that this tact, being ambitious, is not the preferred course of action. The reason is it's the equivalent of sticking your neck out which we all know is dangerous. Instead many act like they have no ambition whatsoever. Their necks come back in and they're safe. Only problem is now they're at everyone else's level, which we've seen is untenable. The remedy of course is that everyone else needs to be sunk. This helps explain racism's enduring popularity. If I myself don't appear to be markedly superior to everyone else at least I'm part of the better race, country, religion et cetera. This in turn reflects well on my individual worth. There are other options, of course. For example, you can constantly bemoan others' lack of moral worth by extension elevating yourself. Think of the average person's reaction to our clients. Do these people strike you as so truly righteous that they are viscerally pained by our clients' misdeeds or are they similarly flawed people looking for anything to hang their hat on? The latter obviously, they're vermin. ↗

— Sergio De La Pava

#domination #oppression #people #racism #reality

For an entire populace, change, growth, and spontaneity were dangerous. Acting upon a personal desire, whispering a hidden longing, revealing your true feelings - all the human actions we think of as essential to a character - had be censored by the self lest they be punished by the state. ↗

— Adam Johnson

#actions #censored #change #character #dangerous