The public

"The way is not made easy for those who would defend the public interest."

"It is too rarely recognized that the concept of "public" is absolutely irreducible to the "state." The term "publicum" designates not merely the state administration, but the entire community as constituted by all citizens."

"The public revealed its single most predictable trait: fickleness."

"When the public narrative significantly diverges from lived experience, the only outcome is more frustration among the people, who realise that on top of being poorly served, they’re also being lied to and manipulated."

"Those closest, and so most accountable, to the people are best positioned to protect their rights."

"Nec audiendi sunt qui solent dicere vox populi, vox dei; cum tumultus vulgi semper insaniæ proxima sit."

"Vox populi habet aliquid divinum: nam quomo do aliter tot capita in unum conspirare possint?"

"The great unwashed."

"The individual is foolish; the multitude, for the moment is foolish, when they act without deliberation; but the species is wise, and, when time is given to it, as a species it always acts right."

"The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny."

"The public! why, the public's nothing better than a great baby."

"Le public! le public! combien faut-il de sots pour faire un public?"

"Qui ex errore imperitæ multitudinis pendet, hic in magnis viris non est habendus."

"Vulgus ex veritate pauca, ex opinione multa æstimat."

"Mobile mutatur semper cum principe vulgus."

"Hence ye profane; I hate you all; Both the great vulgar, and the small."

"This many-headed monster, Multitude."

"La clef des champs."

"The multitude is always in the wrong."

"For who can be secure of private right, If sovereign sway may be dissolved by might? Nor is the people's judgment always true: The most may err as grossly as the few."

"The man in the street does not know a star in the sky."

"Bona prudentiæ pars est nosse stultas vulgi cupiditates, et absurdas opiniones."

"A stiff-necked people."

"Classes and masses."

"Ich wünschte sehr, der Menge zu behagen, Besonders weil sie lebt und leben lässt."

"Wer dem Publicum dient, ist ein armes Thier; Er quält sich ab, niemand bedankt sich dafür."

"Knowing as "the man in the street" (as we call him at Newmarket) always does, the greatest secrets of kings, and being the confidant of their most hidden thoughts."

"No whispered rumours which the many spread can wholly perish."

"The leader, mingling with the vulgar host, Is with the common mass of matter lost!"

"Mobilium turba Quiritium."

"Malignum Spernere vulgus."

"Odi profanum vulgus et ardeo. Favete linguis."

"Reason stands aghast at the sight of an "unprincipled, immoral, incorrigible" publick; And the word of God abounds in such threats and denunciations, as must strike terror into the heart of every believer."

"Venale pecus."

"If I tried to imagine the public as a particular person (for although some better individuals momentarily belong to the public they nevertheless have something concrete about them, which holds them in its grip even if they have not attained the supreme religious attitude), I should perhaps think of one of the Roman emperors, a large well-fed figure, suffering from boredom, looking only for the sensual intoxication of laughter, since the divine gift of wit is not earthly enough. And so for a change he wanders about, indolent rather than bad, but with a negative desire to dominate. Every one who has read the classical authors knows how many things a Caesar could try out in order to kill time. In the same way the public keeps a dog to amuse it. That dog is the sum of the literary world. If there is some one superior to the rest, perhaps even a great man, the dog is set on him and the fun begins. The dog goes for him, snapping and tearing at his coat-tails, allowing itself every possible ill-mannered familiarity – until the public tires, and says it may stop. That is an example of how the public levels. Their betters and superiors in strength are mishandled – and the dog remains a dog which even the public despises. The leveling is therefore done by a third party; a non-existent public leveling with the help of a third party which in its significance is less than nothing, being already more than leveled."

"There is in a religious sense no public, but only individuals, because the religious is earnestness, and earnestness is: the single individual: yet every human being, unconditionally every human being, which one indeed is, can be, yes, should be – the single individual."

"Paucite paucarum diffundere crimen in omnes."

"The people's voice is odd, It is, and it is not, the voice of God."

"Trust not the populace; the crowd is many-minded."

"The proverbial wisdom of the populace in the streets, on the roads, and in the markets, instructs the ear of him who studies man more fully than a thousand rules ostentatiously arranged."

"The public is a bad guesser."

"Vox Populi, vox Dei."

"Who o'er the herd would wish to reign, Fantastic, fickle, fierce, and vain? Vain as the leaf upon the stream, And fickle as a changeful dream; Fantastic as a woman's mood, And fierce as Frenzy's fever'd blood— Thou many-headed monster thing, Oh, who would wish to be thy king?"

"Faith, there have been many great men that have flattered the people, who ne'er loved them; and there be many that they have loved, they know not wherefore; so that, if they love they know not why, they hate upon no better a ground."

"He himself stuck not to call us the many-headed multitude."

"The play, I remember, pleased not the million; 'twas caviare to the general."

"Was ever feather so lightly blown to and fro as this multitude?"

"Look, as I blow this feather from my face, And as the air blows it to me again, Obeying with my wind when I do blow, And yielding to another when it blows, Commanded always by the greater gust; Such is the lightness of you common men."

"Many-headed multitude."

"Laymen say, indeed, How they take no heed Their sely sheep to feed, But pluck away and pull The fleeces of their wool."