A Quote by Robert Green Ingersoll

They who gain applause and power by pandering to the mistakes, the prejudices and passions of the multitude are the enemies of liberty.

Robert Green Ingersoll

Quote Topics

Applause Enemies Gain Liberty Mistakes Multitude Pandering Passions Power Prejudices

Quote Author

Robert Green Ingersoll
American - Lawyer
August 11, 1833 - July 21, 1899

If the multitude is possessed of the balance of real estate, the multitude will have the balance of power, and in that case the multitude will take care of the liberty, virtue, and interest of the multitude in all acts of government.

John Adams

Continue to instruct the world; and - whilst we carry on a poor unequal conflict with the passions and prejudices of our day, perhaps with no better weapons than other passions and prejudices of our own - convey wisdom to future generations.

Edmund Burke

You can tell by the applause: There's perfunctory applause, there's light applause, and then there's real applause. When it's right, applause sounds like vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce.

Skitch Henderson

It is from our enemies that we often gain excellent maxims, and are frequently surprised into reason by their mistakes.

Thomas Paine

I like groaning. That means that you're not pandering to their already settled prejudices.

Bill Maher

Whoso taketh in hand to govern a multitude, either by way of liberty or principality, and cannot assure himself of those persons that are enemies to that enterprise, doth frame a state of short perseverance.

Walter Raleigh

You gain power through practicing meditation and concentration. You gain power by doing anything you like that makes you feel good. You gain power by being happy.

Frederick Lenz

The artist and the multitude are natural enemies. They always will be, both ways. The artist is an enemy of the multitude, and the multitude is the enemy of the artist. And when the disguise comes off and they're both standing facing one another, they're just there at odds end.

Robert Altman

You can gain power by avoidance. You can gain power by doing certain things. You can gain much more power by meditating.

Frederick Lenz

It is an absurdity to believe that the Deity has human passions, and one of the lowest of human passions, a restless appetite for applause

David Hume

Everyone talks about religious liberty, but no one believes it. So let us be blunt about it: we must use the doctrine of religious liberty to gain independence for Christian schools until we train up a generation of people who know that there is no religious neutrality, no neutral law, no neutral education, and no neutral civil government. Then they will get busy in constructing a Bible-based social, political, and religious order which finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God.

Gary North

As we think of power in the 21st century, we want to get away from the idea that power’s always zero sum — my gain is your loss and vice versa. Power can also be positive sum, where your gain can be my gain.

Joseph Nye

As we think of power in the 21st century, we want to get away from the idea that power's always zero sum - my gain is your loss and vice versa. Power can also be positive sum, where your gain can be my gain.

Joseph Nye

Liberty is not just an idea, an abstract principle. It is power, effective power to do specific things. There is no such thing as liberty in general; liberty, so to speak, at large.

John Dewey

The revolution is the war of liberty against its enemies. The constitution is the rule of liberty against its enemies. The constitution is the rule of liberty when victorious and peaceable.