Quotes & Sayings About Doing The Unpopular Thing

A man who is influenced by the polls or is afraid to make decisions which make him unpopular is not a man to represent the welfare of the country. — Harry S. Truman

The Truth must be told at all costs, no matter how unpopular it may be. The authentic spiritual leader, having freed himself of his own false need to be popular, tells the Truth whether it falls on fertile or stony ground. Such a teacher is the salt of the earth, though few know it. If you think the world is delirious as is, you would find it intolerable without his healing influence. — Vernon Howard

And they are beginning to realize that the world they live in is a place where the right thing is often hard, sometimes dangerous, and frequently unpopular. — Lois Lowry

Look you don't know I'm your soul mate," Lily said. " You barely know me at all. I have terrible habits. I swallow toothpaste. My socks don't always match. I'm not good at small talk. I'm just about the most unpopular kid in class, a close third behind the guy who doesn't shower and the girl who's a compulsive liar. Besides, it's not like Jake and me ... He was just being nice."
"You are my soul mate, even if you don't know it yet," Tye said — Sarah Beth Durst

I didn't mind being unpopular at school, because everyone else was a heathen. — Jeanette Winterson

Human beings do not like to look squarely into the face of tragedy. Gloom is unpopular. — Saul Alinsky

There's a saying in Africa, if you give a woman empowerment, you empower a community, you empower men, you empower man. When women become empowered and live in their strength it's beneficiary to others, and I think as young women today we sometimes forget that we are standing on the struggle of other women. Those women had to stand up to make a change, and they were not popular, and now we're making them unpopular again. — Danai Gurira

The Army confronted racial integration when it was still unpopular in society. It has been struggling to more fully integrate women. Its troops, after all, reflect society. — Dana Priest

People think I take some sort of masochistic pleasure out of putting out music that's gonna be unpopular. — Billy Corgan

To be unpopular, you must look the part. Remember four words: plastic flowered swim cap. — Jennifer Ziegler

I make unpopular versions of popular things. I make a horror film and it's not a horror film. None of my genre movies function as genre movies. — Mary Harron

Love is feared: it dissolves society, it's unpopular, and it's very rare. — Christina Stead

I cringe when critics say I'm a master of the popular novel. What's an unpopular novel? — Irwin Shaw

The fully planned economy, so far from being unpopular, is warmly regarded by those who know it best. — John Kenneth Galbraith

She wasn't all that interested, as a reader, in the reader. She was still partial to that increasingly eclipsed entity: the writer. Madeleine had a feeling that most semiotic theorists had been unpopular as children, often bullied or overlooked, and so had directed their lingering rage onto literature. They wanted to demote the author. They wanted a book, that hard-won, transcendent thing, to be a text, contingent, indeterminate, and open for suggestions. They wanted the reader to be the main thing. Because they were readers.
Whereas Madeleine was perfectly happy with the idea of genius. She wanted a book to take her places she couldn't get to herself. She thought a writer should work harder writing a book than she did reading it. — Jeffrey Eugenides

To solve big problems you have to be willing to do unpopular things. — Lee Iacocca

In the national debate about a serious issue, it is the expression of the minority's viewpoint that most demands the protection of the First Amendment. Whatever the better policy may be, a full and frank discussion of the costs and benefits of the attempt to prohibit the use of marijuana is far wiser than suppression of speech because it is unpopular. — John Paul Stevens

The thing is, my fantasies about being a parent always involved fighting for my unpopular child, doing for her what my own parents couldn't do for me when I was a girl. I am so ready to be that little girl's mother. — Ayelet Waldman

Real courage is doing the right thing when nobody's looking. Doing the unpopular thing because it's what you believe, and the heck with everybody. — Justin Cronin

It's probably the most unpopular policy I'm responsible for. I know it is very unpopular, culling badgers. But I believe it is the right thing to do. You have to make choices as a politician. Sometimes it means doing something you know people don't like. — David Cameron

Now, as Crowley would be the first to protest, most demons weren't deep down evil. In the great cosmic game they felt they occupied the same position as tax inspectors - doing an unpopular job, maybe, but essential to the overall operation of the whole thing. If it came to that, some angels weren't paragons of virtue; Crowley had met one or two who, when it came to righteously smiting the ungodly, smote a good deal harder than was strictly necessary. On the whole, everyone had a job to do, and just did it. And on the other hand, you got people like Ligur and Hastur, who took such a dark delight in unpleasantness you might even have mistaken them for human. — Terry Pratchett

So perhaps the reason I shuddered at the idea of writing something about 'Christian art' is that to paint a picture or to write a story or to compose a song is an incarnational activity. The artist is a servant who is willing to be a birth-giver. In a very real sense the artist (male or female) should be like Mary, who, when the angel told her that she was to bear the Messiah, was obedient to the command. Obedience is an unpopular word nowadays, but the artist must be obedient to the work, whether it be a symphony, a painting, or a story for a small child. I believe that each work of art, whether it is a work of great genius or something very small, comes to the artist and says 'Here I am. Enflesh me. Give birth to me.' And the artist either says 'My soul doth magnify the Lord' and willingly becomes the bearer of the work, or refuses; but the obedient response is not necessicarily a conscious one, and not everyone has the humble, courageous obedience of Mary. — Madeleine L'Engle

There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves. [ ... ] There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves.[ ... ]The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility. — C.S. Lewis

She had no idea her view that school funding should actually be used on education instead of football would be so wildly unpopular. — Katie Graykowski

Almost everyone I've ever met who overeats is doing so on behalf of an old self (a discouraged child, an unpopular teenager, a self conscious young adult) who no longer exists. — Deepak Chopra

This truth may be unfashionable, unpalatable, no doubt unpopular, but, if it is the truth, the story of mankind shows that war was universal and unceasing for millions of years before armaments were invented or armies organized. Indeed, the lucid intervals of peace and order only occurred in human history after armaments in the hands of strong governments have come into being, and civilization in every age has been nursed only in cradles guarded by superior weapons and superior discipline. — Winston Churchill

Brazil is very unpopular in Brazil. — Nelson Rodrigues

Moral cowardice that keeps us from speaking our minds is as dangerous to this country as irresponsible talk. The right way is not always the popular and easy way. Standing for right when it is unpopular is a true test of moral character. — Margaret Chase Smith

So it is always preferable to discuss the matter of veganism in a non-judgemental way. Remember that to most people, eating flesh or dairy and using animal products such as leather, wool, and silk, is as normal as breathing air or drinking water. A person who consumes dairy or uses animal products is not necessarily or usually what a recent and unpopular American president labelled an evil doer. — Gary L. Francione

The mere fact that a belief is unpopular at present (or at some other time) is interesting from a sociological point of view but evidentially irrelevant. — Alvin Plantinga

It may be that for a long time some nations will continue to fight each other, but the example of those nations who prefer arbitration to war, law courts to the battlefield, must sooner or later influence the belligerent powers and make war as unpopular as pugilism is now. — Randal Cremer

Truman left in the middle of an unpopular war, a war of choice. Truman didn't have to go into South Korea. And he was reviled and ridiculed for the stalemate that resulted. Now, he's seen as one of the great presidents of the 20th century. — Charles Krauthammer

You don't know who the next group is that's unpopular. The Bill of Rights isn't for the prom queen. The Bill of Rights isn't for the high school quarterback. The Bill of Rights is for the least among us. The bill of rights is for minorities. The bill of rights is for those who have minority opinions. — Rand Paul

Well, human rights defenders, freedom of speech advocates, lawyers that we spoke to said this is really an expansion. After the military ouster of Egypt's unpopular, but elected Islamist president in 2013, we saw political opponents being arrested by the thousands, really. Then we saw a popular comedian go off the air out of fear of retribution. — Leila Fadel

As the eldest in the family, I'm used to making unpopular decisions. — Hetty King

Isn't it strange that I who have written only unpopular books should be such a popular fellow? — Albert Einstein

Sometimes in this world you make unpopular decisions because you think they're right. — George W. Bush

I'm very fond of the concept of choice as the basis for sexual preference. This point of view is unpopular in an era in which every claim for gay rights is bases on pseudoscientific sulking about how we can't help being queer; we're just born that way. Thanks, but I don't want to receive my civil rights as a charity fuck bequeathed on me by my genetic superiors. — Patrick Califia-Rice