Public Quotes

To write weekly, to write daily, to write shortly, to write for busy people catching trains in the morning or for tired people coming home in the evening, is a heartbreaking task for men who know good writing from bad. They do it, but instinctively draw out of harm's way anything precious that might be damaged by contact with the public, or anything sharp that might irritate its skin.

The public has always, and in every age, been badly brought up. They are continually asking Art to be popular, to please their want of taste, to flatter their absurd vanity, to tell them what they have been told before, to show them what they ought to be tired of seeing, to amuse them when they feel heavy after eating too much, and to distract their thoughts when they are wearied of their own stupidity.

The moment that an artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist.

It was a fatal day when the public discovered that the pen is mightier than the paving-stone and can be made as offensive as a brickbat.

The critic has to educate the public; the artist has to educate the critic.

We're not trying to entertain the critics ... I'll take my chances with the public.

The public hungers to see talented young people kill themselves.

Public credit is suspicion asleep.

In art, the public accept what has been, because they cannot alter it, not because they appreciate it. They swallow their classics whole, and never taste them.

How to please the public - that's the test, But nowadays I find I'm in a fix; I know they're not accustomed to the best, But they've all read so much they know the tricks. How can we give then something fresh and new That's serious, but entertaining too?

The best art is about individualism, free self-expression and realising a unique, imaginative perspective- A true artist takes no notice whatever of the public. The public are to him non-existent.

All talk of winning the people by appealing to their intelligence, of conquering them by impeccable syllogism, is so much moonshine.

What makes it possible for politicians to do so many things that are economically counterproductive is that neither the public nor the media know enough of the basics to understand what's wrong with what they're saying.

The press is like a woman: sublime when it lies, it will not let go until it has forced you to believe it. The public, like a foolish husband, always succumbs.

The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing.

The people no longer seek consolation in art. But the refined people, the rich, the idlers seek the new, the extraordinary, the extravagant, the scandalous.

Public morals are natural complement of all laws they are by themselves an entire code.

The land-grant university system is being built on behalf of the people, who have invested in these public universities their hopes, their support, and their confidence.

Politicians regard the public as a cow to be milked

The people may be made to follow a path of action but they may not be made to understand it.

Most of our modern portrait painters are doomed to absolute oblivion. They never paint what they see. They paint what the public sees, and the public never sees anything.

I think the American people are sophisticated enough and wise enough to make judgments about the candidates and wade through the charges and countercharges that come with the [election 2004] campaign.

The Public is merely a multiplied 'me.'

This can never become popular, and, indeed, has no occasion to be so; for fine-spun arguments in favour of useful truths make just as little impression on the public mind as the equally subtle objections brought against these truths. On the other hand, since both inevitably force themselves on every man who rises to the height of speculation, it becomes the manifest duty of the schools to enter upon a thorough investigation of the rights of speculative reason, and thus to prevent the scandal which metaphysical controversies are sure, sooner or later, to cause even to the masses.

The English public always feels perfectly at ease when a mediocrity is talking to it.

The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.

If I'm a star, then the people made me a star.

There should be a law that no ordinary newspaper should be allowed to write about art. The harm they do by their foolish and random writing it would be impossible to overestimate - not to the artist, but to the public, blinding them to all but harming the artist not at all.

The Public ... demands certainties ... But there are not certainties

We have been able to have fine poetry in England because the public do not read it, and consequently do not influence it. The public like to insult poets because they are individual, but once they have insulted them, they leave them alone.

The public wishes itself to be managed like a woman; one must say nothing to it except what it likes to hear.

People want Art. And they are given it. But the less Art there is in painting the more painting there is.

No President should fear public scrutiny of his program. For from that scrutiny comes understanding; and from that understanding comes support or opposition and both are necessary.

When the gratitude of many to one throws away all shame, we behold fame.

A true artist takes no notice whatever of the public. The public to him are non-existent.

The only thing that the artist cannot see is the obvious. The only thing that the public can see is the obvious.

The success of our whole national program depends, of course, on the cooperation of the public--on its intelligent support and its use of a reliable system.