Most Americans think there’s already universal background checks. They don’t understand why there wouldn’t be a background check to purchase a weapon.

I don’t believe that the public knows what it wants; this is the conclusion that I have drawn from my career.

A President cannot always be popular.

In religious and in secular affairs, the more fervent beliefs attract followers. If you are a moderate in any respect – if you’re a moderate on abortion, if you’re a moderate on gun control, or if you’re a moderate in your religious faith – it doesn’t evolve into a crusade where you’re either right or wrong, good or bad, with us or against us.

You pick up some fans and a handful of haters along the way.

Painting is a faith, and it imposes the duty to disregard public opinion.

When I look at public opinion, I’m not far out of the mainstream. I’m in it, in many respects. In some respects, public opinion goes beyond anything I’ve ever said.

When I read about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that American society has found one more way to destroy itself.

Voters quickly forget what a man says.

I have a very strict gun control policy: if there’s a gun around, I want to be in control of it.

If the American people don’t love me, their descendants will.

I venture to say no war can be long carried on against the will of the people.

We don’t want two-tier people in America. Those who are legal but not citizens, and citizens.

I get to hear the really good or the really bad things in the press, but I don’t read it. I can afford to say that because public opinion does not drive U2’s audience.

Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.

You can be a Polish American, or an Arab American, or a Greek American but you can’t be English American. Why not?

I don’t think we need more gun control laws.

When Brexiters told the public that people were exaggerating, that there would be a financial meltdown, I think it’s been proven that they were not exaggerating.

Two million felons have tried to buy a gun and, because of the background check, have been denied.

Americans have the right and advantage of being armed – unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation where the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

The devastating punch we took on September 11th still reverberates throughout American society.

Leaders are responsible not for running public opinion polls but for the consequences of their actions.

People should not be in a position where their children have access to weapons and ammunition.

One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.

Every country when they have Olympics, a lot of people come out opposed.

I think we ought to raise the age at which juveniles can have a gun.

I think the American people, with some justification, think that most politicians live in la-la land.

For me every ruler is alien that defies public opinion.

The public doesn’t mind people living together without being married, providing they don’t overdo it.

No policy that does not rest upon some philosophical public opinion can be permanently maintained.

People are skeptical of many televangelists, and I’m sensitive to that.

We are not trying to entertain the critics. I’ll take my chances with the public.

Fixing a broken immigration system. Protecting our kids from gun violence. Equal pay for equal work, paid leave, raising the minimum wage. All these things still matter to hardworking families; they are still the right thing to do; and I will not let up until they get done.

I think, in politics, half the people are gonna like you, and half the people are not gonna like you, no matter what you do or what you say… It’s like there are no right answers. If there were, everyone would choose the right answers. They’re all opinions.

I’ve been talked about by a lot better people than the general public.

The public is strongly in favor of the Kyoto Protocols, so strongly in favor that a majority of Bush voters thought that he was in favor of it. They are simply unaware.

I’m lucky that, despite all the bad press I’ve had over the years, the public still seems to like me.

The polls show that concern over inequality among the general public rose pretty sharply after the Occupy movement started, very probably as a consequence. And there are other policy issues that came to the fore, which are significant.

How easy it is to govern when one follows a system of consulting the will of the people and one holds as the only norm all the actions which contribute to the well being of the people.

There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion.

Generally speaking, the public appetite for criminal justice policy is just tough talk.

He who molds the public sentiment… makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to make.

Public opinion is the thermometer a monarch should constantly consult.

Public opinion in Egypt is very antagonistic to the way the dictatorship, Mubarak dictatorship, interpreted relations with Israel. Very antagonistic.

Guns are bad, I tell you.

As for gun control advocates, I have no hope whatever that any facts whatever will make the slightest dent in their thinking – or lack of thinking.

Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States – old as well as new – North as well as South.

The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all.

To summarize, draft resistance can make use of the inegalitarian nature of American society as a technique for increasing the cost of American aggression, and it threatens values that are important to those in a decision-making position.

I do not believe any of the statistical claims that are made about public opinion. I don’t see why anybody does.

When President George W. Bush attempted to reform Social Security, that proposal was more unpopular with Americans than the Iraq war. People love their entitlements.

There is probably a perverse pride in my administration… that we were going to do the right thing, even if short-term it was unpopular. And I think anybody who’s occupied this office has to remember that success is determined by an intersection in policy and politics and that you can’t be neglecting of marketing and P.R. and public opinion.

Some of my colleagues argue that by further curtailing our Second Amendment rights, they can enhance public safety. Fine, the burden of proof is on them.

I used to wish there was a useful term for those of us who thought American power should be used to remove psychopathic dictators.

Americans want students to get the best education possible. We want schools to prepare children to become good citizens and members of a prosperous American economy.

The more people I reach, the more people there are that have opinions about me. Not everyone loves me, but I have to be okay no matter what they think about me.

All movements go too far.

A very large majority of the U.S. population is in favor of establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba and has been for a long time with some fluctuations. And even part of the business world is in favor of it, too. But the government won’t allow it.

American society is a sort of flat, fresh-water pond which absorbs silently, without reaction, anything which is thrown into it.

The American people abhor a vacuum.