#pub

Enter RUMOUR, painted full of tongues." [Stage direction, Henry IV, Part 2, Induction] ↗

— William Shakespeare

#gossip #libel #public-opinion #reputation #rumor

When modern sociologists talk of the necessity of accommodating one's self to the trend of the time, they forget that the trend of the time at its best consists entirely of people who will not accommodate themselves to anything. At its worst it consists of many millions of frightened creatures all accommodating themselves to a trend that is not there. And that is becoming more and more the situation...Every man speaks of public opinion, and means by public opinion, public opinion minus his opinion. ↗

— G.K. Chesterton

#public-opinion #sociology #trends #sociology

And so I was scared. I was scared of my own sexual hunger, which felt so secretive and uncharted, and I was scared of the sexual hunger of boys, which felt so vivid and overt, and I was terribly uncertain of the relationships between sex and power and value, which seemed so merged and hard to tease apart. In the midst of all that, I didn't exactly loathe my body, or feel ashamed of it, but I was deeply ashamed of my fear, which felt disabling and immature and woefully, painfully uncool, a terrible secret, evidence of some profound failing and ignorance on my part. Other girls, or so I imagined, knew what to do, how to use their power, how to derive pleasure from it, and in contrast, I felt not only freakish but isolated, as though I was standing outside a vital, defining loop. ↗

— Caroline Knapp

#power #puberty #sexuality #imagination

A funny thing happened to the First Amendment on its way to the public forum. According to the Supreme Court, money is now speech and corporations are now people. But when real people without money assemble to express their dissatisfaction with the political consequences of this, they’re treated as public nuisances and evicted. ↗

— Robert Reich

#democracy #first-amendment #government #politics #public-assembly

It is perhaps because of the Iranian concept of the home and garden (and not the city or town it is in) as the defining center of life that Iranians find living in a society with such stringent rules of public behavior somewhat tolerable. Iranian society by and large cares very little about what goes on in the homes and gardens of private citizens, but the Islamic government cares very much how its citizens behave once they venture outside their walls. ↗

— Hooman Majd

#islam #persia #private #public #society

You have to remember one thing about the will of the people: it wasn't that long ago that we were swept away by the Macarena. ↗

— Jon Stewart

#government #humor #politics #public-opinion #humor

Hey, look—your girlfriend is saying something." Artemis had a vast mental reserve of scathing comebacks at his disposal, but none of them covered girlfriend insults. He wasn't even sure if it was an insult. And if it was, who was being insulted? Him or the girl? ↗

— Eoin Colfer

#humor #insults #puberty #humor

So Henry," Puck said as he kicked off his shoes and propped his smelly feet on the kitchen table. "I was wondering what you can tell me about puberty." Henry turned pale and stammered. Sabrina wanted to crawl under the table and die. ↗

— Michael Buckley

#puberty #humor

I was raised the old-fashioned way, with a stern set of moral principles: Never lie, cheat, steal or knowingly spread a venereal disease. Never speed up to hit a pedestrian or, or course, stop to kick a pedestrian who has already been hit. From which it followed, of course, that one would never ever -- on pain of deletion from dozens of Christmas card lists across the country -- vote Republican. ↗

— Barbara Ehrenreich

#politics #republicans #humor

I'm a registered Republican, I only seem liberal because I believe that hurricanes are caused by high barometric pressure and not gay marriage. ↗

— Aaron Sorkin

#liberal #republican #the-newsroom #humor