Popularity

Popularity is the quality of being well-liked.

Popularity … is generally an appeal to the people from the sentence given by men of sense. ~ George Savile, Marquess of Halifax

Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you! ~ Luke the Evangelist

Arranged alphabetically by author or source:
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B

• There is nothing which a prudent man must shun more carefully than living with a view to popularity and giving serious thought to the things esteemed by the multitude, instead of making sound reason his guide of life, so that, even if he must gainsay all men and fall into disrepute and incur danger for the sake of what is honourable, he will in no wise choose to swerve from what has been recognized as right.
  • Basil of Caesarea, On Greek Literature, p. 429.

• Their poet, a sad trimmer, but no less
  In company a very pleasant fellow,
  Had been the favorite of full many a mess
  Of men, and made them speeches when half mellow;
  And though his meaning they could rarely guess,
  Yet still they deign'd to hiccup or to bellow
  The glorious meed of popular applause,
  Of which the first ne'er knows the second cause.
  • Lord Byron, Don Juan (1818-24), Canto III, Stanza 82.

C

• Some shout him, and some hang upon his car,
  To gaze in his eyes, and bless him. Maidens wave
  Their 'kerchiefs, and old women weep for joy;
  While others, not so satisfied, unhorse
  The gilded equipage, and turning loose
  His steeds, usurp a place they well deserve.
  • William Cowper, The Task (1785), Book VI, line 708.

F

• We have aimed at popularity in the best sense of that term. The truly popular writer never sinks into the vulgar crowd. He rather raises the masses by bringing the highest subjects within their comprehension, making them, without a show of erudition, easily understood.
  • Ernst von Feuchtersleben, The Dietetics of the Soul; Or, True Mental Discipline (1838), p. 4.

J

• εἰ ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου ἦτε, ὁ κόσμος ἂν τὸ ἴδιον ἐφίλει· ὅτι δὲ ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου οὐκ ἐστέ, ἀλλ’ ἐγὼ ἐξελεξάμην ὑμᾶς ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου, διὰ τοῦτο μισεῖ ὑμᾶς ὁ κόσμος.
  • If you were part of the world, the world would be fond of what is its own. Now because you are no part of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, for this reason the world hates you.
  • John 15:19 NWT

L

• That’s the problem with being the flavor of the month: before you know it, the calendar’s turned, and no one can remember what they found so appealing about you in the first place.
  • John Langan, Technicolor (2009), reprinted in Rich Horton (ed.) The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2010, p. 235

• And to some men popularity is always suspicious. Enjoying none themselves, they are prone to suspect the validity of those attainments which command it.
  • George Henry Lewes, The Spanish Drama (1846), Chapter III.

• Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you!
  • Luke 6:26.

S

• Popularity is a crime from the moment it is sought: it is only a virtue where men have it, whether they will or no. It is generally an appeal to the people from the sentence given by men of sense.
  • George Savile, Marquess of Halifax, “Moral Thoughts and Reflections,” Complete Works (Oxford:1912), p. 232.

• All tongues speak of him, and the bleared sights
  Are spectacled to see him.
  • William Shakespeare, Coriolanus (c. 1607-08), Act II, scene 1, line 221.

• I have seen the dumb men throng to see him, and
  The blind to hear him speak: matrons flung gloves,
  Ladies and maids their scarfs and handkerchers
  Upon him as he passed; the nobles bended,
  As to Jove's statue, and the commons made
  A shower and thunder with their caps and shouts.
  • William Shakespeare, Coriolanus (c. 1607-08), Act II, scene 1, line 278.

• Or art thou base, common and popular?
  • William Shakespeare, Henry V (c. 1599), Act IV, scene 1, line 37.

• The ladies call him sweet;
  The stairs, as he treads on them, kiss his feet.
  • William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost (c. 1595-6), Act V, scene 2, line 329.

T

• There was ease in Casey's manner as he stept into his place,
  There was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile on Casey's face,
  And when responding to the cheers he lightly doft his hat,
  No stranger in the crowd could doubt, 't was Casey at the bat.
  • Ernest L. Thayer, Casey at the Bat (1888).

U

• If a man despises the applause of the crowd of today, it is because he seeks to survive in renewed minorities for generations. ... He wishes to prolong himself in time rather than in space. The crowd soon overthrows its own idols and the statue lies broken at the foot of the pedestal without anyone heeding it; but those who win the hearts of the elect will long be the objects of a fervent worship in some shrine, small and secluded no doubt, but capable of preserving them from the flood of oblivion.
  • Miguel de Unamuno, Tragic Sense of Life (1913)

W

• He has fought a good fight and has had to face every difficulty except popularity.
  • Oscar Wilde of William Ernest Henley; quoted in William Rothenstein, Men and Memories, I, ch, 25.

See also

• Fame
• Celebrity