Public discourse

“ The heart swelled at the mention of a public as of a private wrong—the brain teemed with projects for the benefit of mankind. History, philosophy, all well-intentioned and well-informed men agreed in the same conclusion. If a good was to be done, let it—if a truth was to be told, let it! ”

“ The yoke of society,—you bow to public opinion in a measure. You avoid a glaring act, often, more because it will not be approved, than because you have a real disinclination for it. Is not that the case sometimes? ”

“ Why, all the intellect that ever was is theirs. The public opinion expresses not only the collective sense of the whole people, but of all ages and nations, of all those minds that have devoted themselves to the love of truth and the good of mankind,—who have bequeathed their instructions, their hopes, and their example to posterity,—who have thought, spoke, written, acted, and suffered in the name and on the behalf of our common nature. ”

“ The real public opinion of a nation, expressing its deepest conviction (as distinguished from what is ordinarily called public opinion, the first cry of professional politicians and journalists, which usually goes wrong,) is undoubtedly entitled to very great respect. ”

“ You have seldom or never had the truth spoken to you when you have been directly addressed. You have been called the enlightened Public, the generous Public, the judicious Public, the liberal Public, the discerning Public, and so forth. Nay your bare title THE PUBLIC, oftentimes stands alone par excellence in its plain majesty like that of the king, as if needing no affix to denote its inherent and pre-eminent importance. ”

“ Let that belief which you hold alone, have free course. I have observed that, in all public speaking, the rule of the orator begins, not in the array of his facts, but when his deep conviction, and the right and necessity he feels to convey that conviction to his audience,—when these shine and burn in his address; when the thought which he stands for gives its own authority to him,—adds to him a grander personality, gives him valor, breadth, and new intellectual power, so that not he, but mankind, seems to speak through his lips. ”

“ They carry a penetrating eye for the thoughts and intentions of those with whom they have to deal; and when they mean to deceive, they cover themselves with arts which the most subtile can seldom elude. They harangue in their public councils with a nervous and a figurative elocution; and conduct themselves in the management of their treaties with a perfect discernment of their national interests. ”

“ This power, which is popularly termed public sentiment is, in this country at least, the most potential agency which can be brought to bear upon the errors or vices of the age, in whatever form they may be presented. ”

“ Concerted action will extend the benefits of this individual action to the creation of Public Opinion in the Community, in Society at large. As all great powers, Public Opinion is courted; this courtship is "Propaganda." ”

“ Thus here the public opinion of the people never can fail to be a direct rule for the government, and reciprocally the word of the government has the weight of a fact by the people's support. When your government speaks, it is the people which speaks. ”

“ it has invented and established Public Opinion, which is an attempt to organise the ignorance of the community, and to elevate it to the dignity of physical force. ”

“ We will ever respect and inculcate virtue, both public and private, and deprecate vice in all its dazzling forms. Nothing shall ever appear in our columns to disturb the present public tranquillity, unless we see danger lurking therein, which duty requires us to expose to public view. ”

“ As far as every private individual can assist in bringing these truths to light and in influencing public opinion by the eloquence of tongue or pen he does right, as a man and as a gentleman, and a good member of society, and wisely in the present times, to stop, if possible, the power of democracy. ”

“ Its discussions chiefly gather around minor points of administration; rarely do they reveal any degree of constructive originality. Yet the public spirit which is the life of a community needs continual stimulus; and this stimulus is dependent on discussion. ”

“ We live in a new era, when public opinion is king, and no other rule is possible; public opinion, as expressed in the press and on the platform, and by the deliberately chosen representatives of the people. Every question can be discussed and argued, all sides of it can be heard, and the nation makes up its mind. The collective judgment of all is wiser than the wisest single man—securus judicat orbis. ”

“ In common with the scenario writer, the preacher, the statesman, the dramatist, the public relations counsel, has his share in making up the mind of the public. The public quite as truly makes up the mind of the journalist, the pamphleteer, the scenario writer, the preacher and the statesman. The main direction of the public mind is often irrevocably set for its leaders. ”

“ As an important consequence a new and unprecedented interest has been awakened in public affairs, which are now better known and more extensively discussed and judged tending to the formation of a sound public opinion which is so potent and salutary a force in the modern world. ”

“ The remarks are not made with a view to drawing a conclusion. They are offered with a view to outlining a problem: What is the public? If there is a public, what are the obstacles in the way of its recognizing and articulating itself? Is the public a myth? Or does it come into being only in periods of marked social transition when crucial alternative issues stand out, such as that between throwing one’s lot in with the conservation of established institutions or with forwarding new tendencies? ”

“ What is now spoken out in broad daylight, open to the judgment of all and to the criticism of public opinion, will then be discussed in secret conventicles, and those who now are satisfied with speaking or listening will then, no longer controlled by public opinion, feel an irresistible desire to act. ”

“ But the public sensibility, and our own, has sharpened the spirit of inquiry, and given an animation to the debate. The public attention has been quickened to mark the progress of the discussion, and its judgment, often hasty and erroneous on first impressions, has become solid and enlightened at last. Our result will, I hope, on that account, be safer and more mature, as well as more accordant with that of the nation. The only constant agents in political affairs are the passions of men. Shall we complain of our nature—shall we say that man ought to have been made otherwise? ”

“ It is natural that the manner in which the popular mind proceeded from conclusion to conclusion, should have found its best illustration in the political discussions which accompanied and aided the progress of public opinion. ”

“ But in a government controlled by public opinion, which public opinion is inspired and guided by discussion, it is not the man who makes it a business to be silent, but it is the talking man, who, provided his talk be reasonable, does the greatest service. ”

“ The public relations counsel works with that vague, little-understood, indefinite material called public opinion.
Public opinion is a term describing an ill-defined, mercurial and changeable group of individual judgments. Public opinion is the aggregate result of individual opinions—now uniform, now conflicting—of the men and women who make up society or any group of society. In order to understand public opinion, one must go back to the individual who makes up the group. ”

“ At the beginning of my activity as a public speaker I made it my rule never to say anything in my speeches that I did not conscientiously believe to be true; never to hesitate to admit a mistake when I became convinced that I had made one; never to appeal to a prejudice or to a mean, narrow-minded selfish interest; to invoke only the highest order of motives—patriotism, the sense of right, justice, and honor ”

“ I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. Harmony, and a liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity and interest. ”

“ Promote then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.
In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and lasting impression I could wish; that they will control the usual current of the passions, or prevent our nation from running the course, which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations. ”

“ Can there then be a more stringent public duty for every man—and the greater the intelligence the greater the duty—than to take care, by all the influence he can command, that the country, the majority, public opinion, shall have a mind to do only what is just and pure and humane? ”

“ The character and origins of public opinion, the factors that make up the individual mind and the group mind must be understood if the profession of public relations counsel is to be intelligently practiced and its functions and possibilities accurately estimated. Society must understand the fundamental character of the work he is doing, if for no other reason than its own welfare. ”

“ Public Opinion.—Universal education in school and out, freedom of discussion, freedom of thought and will to do are necessary to social progress. Public opinion is an expression of the combined judgments of many minds working in conscious or unconscious co-operation. ”

“ There has been nothing that public opinion, especially that section of it that may be called social opinion, has changed in more than in the standard it fixes for, and demands from, all men, and particularly young men. ”

“ As a matter of fact, the actual phrase is completely understood by only a few, and those only the people intimately associated with the work itself. But despite this, the activities of the public relations counsel affect the daily life of the entire population in one form or another. ”

“ Can anybody fall to make the inference what the practical result will be? If there is, as we admit, a public sentiment among you, men of honor, justice and humanity, is there not also another kind of public sentiment among the ruffian, the brutal and debased? ”

“ We promise the public a paper worthy of their patronage, and our people one that will be ever vigilant in their defence when their rights, privileges and opportunities are trammelled, We shall be no less active in speaking our opinion concerning any faults, short-comings, and indiscretions of our own people. ”

“ Because of the importance of channels of thought communication, it is vital for the public relations counsel to study carefully the relationship between public opinion and the organs that maintain it or that influence it to change. ”

“ I have had an active part in a great many political campaigns and probably addressed as many popular meetings as any man now living; and I have always found that whenever any public question under public discussion had in it any moral element, an appeal to the moral sense of the people proved uniformly the most powerful argument. ”

“ All phases of opinion, including the most earnest and honest inquiry into social questions, finds some voice in print, but—leaving aside times when public opinion is greatly aroused—those phases that are backed by wealthy interests have a great advantage in the urgency, persistence and cleverness with which they are presented. ”

“ Be not, as some of you are, 435the mere echoes of public opinion; make public opinion. Let the great roll on which you write with a man’s pen be a message of light and liberty, and kindness and an awakening of moral power. ”

“ As the public will is the operative spring of all public action, it will be your duty to make and to keep the public will enlightened. There will always be some error to dispel, some prejudice to correct, some illusion to guard against, some imposition to detect and expose. ”

“ I have more than once seen one man within two days practically change, or formulate, one might better say, the opinion of a large part of a community by a dozen conversations with as many different men, each representing some special social or business class.
It is of course a commonplace that along many lines that are chiefly moral, public opinion is shaped by the influence of our churches, by public lectures, university extension lectures, meetings called especially for purposes of agitation ”

“ As the democracy brought them into existence, the demand of the democracy would be the measure of the kind and quality of the article which they were expected to supply; and the article which a democracy demands for the use of its public spokesmen is always the same,—a certain practical knowledge and shrewdness in the conduct of affairs, a certain ready sympathy with, popular prejudices and passions, a certain superficial dexterity in argument, and above all, a fluent and effective style of popular oratory. ”

“ I cogitated, as I stood at the fire, on the subject of the public in general, and found that I could divide it, like man himself, into three parts—into the Buying-public, the Reading-public, and the Art-public, just as speculative persons have assumed that man consists of Body, Soul, and Spirit. ”

“ To enlighten public opinion, to remind it of its real interests,—this it is for which you should exert your influence. Endeavor above all things to make your colleagues in the parliaments to which you belong, share in your anxieties, which doubtless are equal to those borne by us. ”

“ Convinced yourself of the worthiness of your cause, bend every mental and intellectual effort to making others understand as you do, see as you do. If your reasoning is clear and converting, if your manner is direct and sincere, you should be able to induce others to believe as you do.
The Persuasive Speech. In public speaking upon occasions when votes are to be cast, where reforms are to be instituted, where changes are to be inaugurated, you have not finished when you have turned the mental attitude, and done no more. You must arouse the will to act. ”