A Quote by Samuel Johnson

The majority of a society is the true definition of the public.

Samuel Johnson

Quote Topics

Definition Majority Public Society True

Quote Author

Samuel Johnson
English - Writer
September 18, 1709 - December 13, 1784

A society - any society - is defined as a set of mutual benefits and duties embodied most visibly in public institutions: public schools, public libraries, public transportation, public hospitals, public parks, public museums, public recreation, public universities, and so on.

Robert Reich

If a poet has any obligation toward society, it is to write well. Being in the minority, he has no other choice. Failing this duty, he sinks into oblivion. Society, on the other hand, has no obligation toward the poet. A majority by definition, society thinks of itself as having other options than reading verses, no matter how well written. Its failure to do so results in its sinking to that level of locution at which society falls easy prey to a demagogue or a tyrant. This is society's own equivalent of oblivion.

Joseph Brodsky

The definition of public art to me means everything and means nothing because for me, all art is public. Art has to be public by definition and in a way It has to be accessible to any audience not just a work in a museum or an art gallery.

Emi Fontana

If anyone wants to know what the definition of 'dope' means, it's: 'Definition of Public Enemy.

Flavor Flav

If anyone wants to know what the definition of 'dope' means, it's: 'Definition of Public Enemy.'

Flavor Flav

It is not necessary for the politician to be the slave of the public's group prejudices, if he can learn how to mold the mind of the voters in conformity with his own ideas of public welfare and public service. The important thing for the statesman of our age is not so much to know how to please the public, but to know how to sway the public. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.

Edward Bernays

Alabama citizens, like the vast majority of Americans, respect and value the meaning of decency, and appreciate public institutions that reflect the common values of our society.

Mike Rogers

Like a majority of the population and a majority of even Tory voters, I want the railways back in public ownership.

Jeremy Corbyn

[The Republican Party] for example, they do run the House of Representatives, they're a majority there, and it's the House that is essentially sending the government into shutdown and maybe default. But they won the majority of seats there because of various kinds of chicanery. They got a minority of the votes, but a majority of the seats, and they're using them to press forward an agenda which is extremely harmful to the public.

Noam Chomsky

Majorities are of two sorts: (1) communal majority and (2) political majority. A political majority is changeable in its class composition. A political majority grows. A communal majority is born. The admission to a political majority is open. The door to a communal majority is closed. The politics of political majority are free to all to make and unmake. The politics of communal majority are made by its own members born in it.

B. R. Ambedkar

My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.

Adlai E. Stevenson

I just happen to comprehend the low standards of the majority of the music-buying public, and I don’t care how condescending that sounds, it’s true. They always go for the shiny gimmicks. Always.

Tiffanie DeBartolo

Know the true definition of yourself. That is essential. Then, when you know your own definition, flee from it.

Rumi

When a parliamentary or social majority decrees that it is legal, at least under certain conditions, to kill unborn human life, is it not really making a tyrannical decision with regard to the weakest and most defenseless of human beings?....While public authority can sometimes choose not to put a stop to something which were it prohibited would cause more serious harm, it can never presume to legitimize as a right of individuals even if they are the majority of the members of society an offense against other persons caused by the disregard of so fundamental a right as the right to life.