Least Popular Quotes & Sayings

High school wasn't so bad though because, by then, I had worked out that there were far more nerdy kids and poor kids than there were rich, popular kids, so, at the very least, we had them outnumbered. — Beth Ditto

In my view the study of fairy origins assumes a greater degree of importance than popular opinion is wont to concede to it. Indeed, the ideas associated with it strike at the very roots of human belief and primitive methods of reasoning. It is scarcely to be questioned that the explanation of fairy origins is of the utmost value to the better comprehension of primitive religion. Later it will be made clear that, for the writer at least, the whole tradition of Faerie reveals quite numerous and excellent proofs of its former existence as a primitive and separate cult and faith, more particularly as regards its appearance and tradition in these islands. — Lewis Spence

Contrary to popular belief, I consider failure a necessity in business. If you're not failing at least five times a day, you're probably not doing enough. The more you do, the more you fail. The more you fail, the more you learn. The more you learn, the better you get. The operative word here is learn. If you repeat the same mistake two or three times, you are not learning from it. You must learn from your own mistakes and from the mistakes of others before you.4 — John C. Maxwell

Economists use the term "human capital" to refer to the skills and abilities and qualities and resources that each individual possesses. And in the late 1990s and early 2000s, human capital became an increasingly popular way to look at the problem of poverty. No one had all the answers yet, but they had, at least, a new set of questions: What specific resources did middle-class children have that allowed them to succeed at such higher rates than poor children? What skills did poor children need to help them compete? And most important, what kind of interventions in their lives or in their parents' lives could help them acquire those skills? — Paul Tough

Despite his attempts to alter his destiny - joining the worst cohort, trying to change the camp traditions, taking the least glamorous missions, and befriending the least popular kids - he had been made praetor anyway. — Rick Riordan

When one looks at the all-prevailing schizophrenia of democratic societies, the lies that have to be told for vote-catching purposes, the silence about major issues, the distortions of the press, it is tempting to believe that in totalitarian countries there is less humbug, more facing of the facts. There, at least, the ruling groups are not dependent on popular favour and can utter the truth crudely and brutally. Goering could say 'Guns before butter', while his democratic opposite numbers had to wrap the same sentiment up in hundreds of hypocritical words. — George Orwell

At least that left hope for him. Except "Beauty and the Geek" wasn't exactly the proper translation of the popular fairy tale. — Kelly Moran

Christians today appear to know Christ only after the flesh. They try to achieve communion with Him by divesting Him of His burning holiness and unapproachable majesty, the very attributes He veiled while on earth but assumed in fullness of glory upon His ascension to the Father's right hand. The Christ of popular Christianity has a weak smile and a halo. He has become Someone-Up-There who likes people, at least some people, and these are grateful but not too impressed. If they need Him, He also needs them. (The Knowledge of the Holy) — A.W. Tozer

We all want to be stars. The idea of being revered and envied must be encoded somewhere deep in our DNA. So must the desire to revere and envy others we imagine to be better, more accepted, and more popular than we are. The only problem is that the most necessary qualities required to be a celebrity
self-absorption, egomania, shamelessness
are the least attractive in a friend. — Tonya Hurley

Ignorant people always suppose that popular writers are wonderfully well-paid - and must be making rapid fortunes - because they neither starve in garrets, nor wear rags - at least in America. — Eliza Leslie

Nearly everywhere I've been, popular wisdom has it that the location of humanity's original planet is unknown, mysterious. In fact it isn't, as anyone who troubles to read on the subject will discover, but it is very, very, very far away from nearly anywhere, and not a tremendously interesting place. Or at the very least, not nearly as interesting as the enchanting idea that your people are not newcomers to their homes but in fact only recolonized the place they had belonged from the beginning of time. One meets this claim anywhere one finds a remotely human-habitable planet. — Ann Leckie

At least in popular parlance, what makes religious folks religious today is not so much that they believe in Jesus' divinity or Buddhism's Four Noble Truths but that they hold certain moral positions on bedroom issues such as premarital sex, homosexuality, and abortion. — Stephen Prothero

Making loans and fighting poverty are normally two of the least glamorous pursuits around, but put the two together and you have an economic innovation that has become not just popular but downright chic. The innovation - microfinance - involves making small loans to poor entrepreneurs, usually in developing countries. — James Surowiecki

The man who in times of popular excitement boldly and unflinchingly resists hot-tempered clamor for an unnecessary war, and thus exposes himself to the opprobrious imputation of a lack of patriotism or of courage, to the end of saving his country from a great calamity, is, as to 'loving and faithfully serving his country,' at least as good a patriot as the hero of the most daring feat of arms," Schurz — Stephen Kinzer

The power in any society is with those who get to impose the fantasy. It is no longer, as it was for centuries throughout Europe, the church that imposes its fantasy on the populace, nor is it the totalitarian superstate that imposes the fantasy, as it did for 12 years in Nazi Germany and for 69 years in the Soviet Union. Now the fantasy that prevails is the all-consuming, voraciously consumed popular culture, seemingly spawned by, of all things, freedom. The young especially live according to the beliefs that are thought up for them by the society's most unthinking people and by businesses least impeded by innocent ends. Ingeniously as their parents and teachers may attempt to protect the young from being drawn, to their detriment, into the moronic amusement park that is now universal, the preponderance of the power is not with them. — Philip Roth

Jesus said whatever you do to the least of these my brothers you've done it to me. And this is what I've come to think. That if I want to identify fully with Jesus Christ, who I claim to be my Savior and Lord, the best way that I can do that is to identify with the poor. This I know will go against the teachings of all the popular evangelical preachers. But they're just wrong. They're not bad, they're just wrong ... Christianity is about learning to love like Jesus loved and Jesus loved the poor and Jesus loved the broken-hearted. — Rich Mullins

Where a government has come into power through some form of popular vote, fraudulent or not, and maintains at least an appearance of constitutional legality, the guerrilla outbreak cannot be promoted, since the possibilities of peaceful struggle have not yet been exhausted. — Che Guevara

We're told we have a government by popular consent. At least in one sense that's true. Every government always exercises the maximum amount of power its rulers feel the people will stand for without revolting. If this government - or an element within it - is drastically increasing its use of power, then the leaders either feel they have the popular support - or apathy - to get away with it, or they're taking desperate chances because they're being pressed to the wall. — J. Neil Schulman

Now the various species of whales need some sort of popular comprehensive classification, if only an easy outline one for the present, hereafter to be filled in all its departments by subsequent laborers. As no better man advances to take this matter in hand, I hereupon offer my own poor endeavors. I promise nothing complete; because any human thing supposed to be complete, must for that very reason infallibly be faulty. I shall not pretend to a minute anatomical description of the various species, or - in this place at least - to much of any description. My object here is simply to project the draught of a systematization of cetology. I am the architect, not the builder. (moby dick chap 32 p131) — Herman Melville

Apparently Henry had all the qualities necessary to make him popular in Virginian society, at least according to Jefferson: "His manners had something of coarseness in them; his passion was music, dancing and pleasantly. He excelled in the last, and it attached everyone to him. You ask some account of his mind and information at this period; but you will recollect that we were almost continually engaged in the usual revelries of the season. The occasion perhaps, as much as his idle disposition, prevented his engaging in any conversation which might give the measure either of his mind or information." While — Charles River Editors

I have a very real political awareness that at least on a transient basis the more drastic action taken by the president, the more popular it is. — Jimmy Carter

Religious liberty in a nation is as real as the liberty of its least popular religious minority. Look not to the size of cathedrals or even to the words on the statute books for proof of the reality of religious freedom. Ask what is the fate of the Protestant in Spain, the Jew in Saudi Arabia, the Arab in Israel, the Catholic in Poland or the atheist in the United States. — Paul Blanshard

Liberal education, which consists in the constant intercourse with the greatest minds, is a training in the highest form of modesty ... It is at the same time a training in boldness ... It demands from us the boldness implied in the resolve to regard the accepted views as mere opinions, or to regard the average opinions as extreme opinions which are at least as likely to be wrong as the most strange or least popular opinions — Leo Strauss

While the fashion industry may, at least at the top end, be thriving, the notion of fashion itself is becoming more and more meaningless. Any discipline in fashion has long since evaporated; the idea of a single fashionable skirt length, or heel height, is incomprehensible. The definition of the fashionable has become so skimpy that it refers not to the mode of dress of everyday people
the clothes that have sufficiently caught the popular imagination to be worn in a widespread manner
but only to the styles that momentarily excite members of the fashion caravan. — Rebecca Mead

In what was happening now there was still that element of popular frenzy; but it was also clear that it was more organized, or that at least it had some deeper principle. — V.S. Naipaul

The British press ... [claimed that Tony] Blair was simply Bush's poodle - a favorite phrase, bewilderingly popular, although it made no sense - and that he was ignoring the will of the British people. Considering the hacks had spent Blair's first six years in office condemning him for relying on focus groups and opinion polls for his policies - in other words, paying attention to nothing but the will of the people, or at least their whims - that seemed a little rich to me, but as I said, logical consistency has never figured highly in the British media's scale of values. — Larry King

Because I've heard so many stories that I don't know which one is the most popular. But I do know which is the least popular. The truth. — Jay Asher

The historian is looked upon as objective when he measures the past by the popular opinions of his own time, as subjective when he does not take these opinions for models. That man is thought best fitted to depict a period of the past, who is not in the least affected by that period. But only he who has a share in building up the future can grasp what the past has been, and only when transformed into a work of art can history arouse or even sustain instincts. — Georg Brandes

On December 12, 1829, Paganini wrote his friend Germi: "The variations I've composed on the graceful Neapolitan ditty, 'Oh Mamma, Mama Cara,' outshine everything. I can't describe it!" He was writing from Karlsruhe, in the midst of his triumphal tour through Germany. That letter marks the earliest known mention of the variations that would become famous as "The Carnival of Venice." At the time of his letter, Paganini had already performed the piece in at least four concerts. From then on, it would be one of his most popular compositions. — Niccolo Paganini

Books of natural history aim commonly to be hasty schedules, or inventories of God's property, by some clerk. They do not in the least teach the divine view of nature, but the popular view, or rather the popular method of studying nature, and make haste to conduct the persevering pupil only into that dilemma where the professors always dwell. — Henry David Thoreau

We're at this really unique time, I think, in trans representation in popular culture where homelessness, depression, mental health issues, instability-in-general are still so very real and need to be talked about, but we're aware that they've dominated "trans" stories for years and years.

And we're now finally at a place where we're seeing some really positive representations of trans folks in pop culture, and there's this new pressure -- at least, I feel it, within trans and trans-ally communities -- to only focus on the positive. Because we're trying, in some sense, to overcompensate for the years and years of too much negativity. As a writer, you might feel a pressure to push the negative stuff away. But there are consequences for that too. Anyone who's working with trans characters right now is going to have to reconcile that tension. — Mitch Kellaway

The most popular persons are those who take the world as it is who find the least fault. — Charles Dudley Warner

I learnt a lot in government, and I've learnt a lot since leaving government. The kind of journey of being in government is that you start at your most popular and least capable, and you end at your most capable and least popular. — Tony Blair

A lot of the people who read a bestselling novel, for example, do not read much other fiction. By contrast, the audience for an obscure novel is largely composed of people who read a lot. That means the least popular books are judged by people who have the highest standards, while the most popular are judged by people who literally do not know any better. An American who read just one book this year was disproportionately likely to have read 'The Lost Symbol', by Dan Brown. He almost certainly liked it. — The Economist

False greatness is unsociable and remote: conscious of its own frailty, it hides, or at least averts its face, and reveals itself only enough to create an illusion and not be recognized as the meanness that it really is. True greatness is free, kind, familiar and popular; it lets itself be touched and handled, it loses nothing by being seen at close quarters; the better one knows it, the more one admires it. — Jean De La Bruyere

To know me is to love me. This cliche is popular for a reason, because most of us, I imagine, believe deep in our hearts that if anyone truly got to know us, they'd truly get to love us - or at least know why we're the way we are. The problem in life, maybe the central problem, is that so few people ever seem to have sufficient curiosity to do the job on us that we know we deserve. — Roger Ebert

Only in Brutus and his fellow-conspirators - of all Shakespearian characters - do we find the least consideration for liberty, and even then he makes the common, and perhaps in his time the unavoidable, mistake of overlooking the genuinely democratic leanings of Julius Caesar and the anti-popular character of the successful plot against him. — William Shakespeare

To cry out that the emperor had no clothes on was at least to pick on one man only to the amusement of everyone else; to declare that almost everyone is dressed in rags is much less likely to be popular. — Alasdair MacIntyre

Their preservation depends upon a sentiment. As sentiment never yet annihilated a paying industry, we cannot hope to stay, wholly, the ax and saw of the lumberman. But popular opinion, combined with action, if directed intelligently towards the setting apart of some one section of the noble redwood forests ... will, I believe, save for our present delight and for that of the generations who come after us, at least one grand forest of the Sequoia sempervirens such as the world cannot show elsewhere, such as a thousand years cannot reproduce. — Frank Howard Clark

Well, there's a Book that says we're all sinners and I at least chose a sin that's made quite a few people happier than they were before they met me, a sin that's left me with very little time to consider other extremely popular moral misdemeanors, like usury, intolerance, bearing false tales, extortion, racial bigotry, and the casting of that first stone. — Sally Stanford

[Alan] Dershowitz has also offered to defend Osama bin Laden in court, saying it would be an act of high patriotism. It's kind of too bad there isn't going to be a trial. Having Dershowitz defend him could be Osama's only shot at not being the least popular person in the courtroom. — Ann Coulter

At the bottom of at least popular Marxism there has always been a kind of disgust with humanity as it is and a perfect faith in humanity as it is to be. — Lionel Trilling

The First World became a popular phrase in about the 1970s and '80s. The World Bank then began categorizing countries in different categories, advanced to the least developed. — Lee Kuan Yew

Popular Western notions about fairies have been increasingly sanitized by since Victorian times, before which they were among the most feared of supernatural entities. In earlier times, even the good-natured fairies were believed to use their supernatural powers against people more than for help, and people went out of their way to avoid them or, if they absolutely couldn't, at least placate them. — Rosemary Ellen Guiley

I'm told that Sherlock Holmes never said, "Elementary, my dear Watson" (at least in the Arthur Conan Doyle books) Jimmy Cagney never said, "You dirty rat"; and Humphrey Bogart never said, "Play it again, Sam." But they might as well have, because these apocrypha have firmly insinuated themselves into popular culture. — Carl Sagan

All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach. — Adolf Hitler

I couldn't lose her. I wouldn't. Just the thought of never being able to touch her again made me crazy. Crazier than losing all my friends. Crazier than being the least popular guy in school. Crazier than having Amma perpetually angry at me. Losing her was the worst thing I could imagine. Like I was falling, but this time I would definitely hit the ground. — Kami Garcia

For all of its well-deserved reputation for pragmatism, American popular culture frequently nurtures or at least tolerates preposterous views and theories. Witness the 9/11 'truthers' who, lacking any evidence whatsoever, claim that 9/11 was a Bush administration plot. — Michael Hayden

The representatives of the people, in a popular assembly, seem sometimes to fancy that they are the people themselves, and betray strong symptoms of impatience and disgust at the least sign of opposition from any other quarter; as if the exercise of its rights, by either the executive or judiciary, were a breach of their privilege and an outrage to their dignity. — Alexander Hamilton

Each one of us must in the end choose for himself how far he would like to leave our collective fate to the wayward vagaries of popular assemblies For myself it would be most irksome to be ruled by a bevy of Platonic Guardians, even if I knew how to choose them, which I assuredly do not I should miss the stimulus of living in a society where I have, at least theoretically, some part in the direction of public affairs. — Learned Hand

At pier four there is a 34-foot yawl-rigged yacht with two of the three hundred and twenty-four Esthonians who are sailing around in different parts of the world, in boats between 28 and 36 feet long and sending back articles to the Esthonian newspapers. These articles are very popular in Esthonia and bring their authors between a dollar and a dollar and thirty cents a column. They take the place occupied by the baseball or football news in American newspapers and are run under the heading of Sagas of Our Intrepid Voyagers. No well-run yacht basin in Southern waters is complete without at least two sunburned, salt bleached-headed Esthonians who are waiting for a check from their last article. When it comes they will sail to another yacht basin and write another saga. They are very happy too. Almost as happy as the people on the Alzira III. It's great to be an Intrepid Voyager. — Ernest Hemingway,

[The answer of Solon to the question 'Which is the most perfect popular government?']
That where the least injury done to the meanest individual, is considered as an insult on the whole constitution. — Solon

Big fund companies have many ways to increase the returns of young funds that they want to promote. And at least one of those games involves popular offerings. — Alex Berenson

the old anti-'commercial' tendencies mocked throughout this book have been bulked up into a worldview by the runaway growth of what I call semipopular music." (Oh yeah, "semipopular music." Er, "music more popular in form than in market share." At least when it starts out. Under the rubric "alternative," now also an established image-making strategy that informs many of the "brands" ambitious young musicians concoct for themselves. — Robert Christgau

For some parents, as with Jason's father, the least popular feature of their children is defiance. Yet it is one of the most important for safety. If defiance is always met with discipline and never with discussion, that can handicap a child. The moment the two-year-old defiantly asserts his will for the first time may be cause for celebration, not castigation, for he is building the courage to resist. If your teenage daughter never tests her defiance on you, she may well be unable to use it on a predator. — Gavin De Becker

Among Hispanics, there is little change in popularity from a grade point average of 1 through 2.5. After 2.5, the gradient turns sharply negative. A Hispanic student with a 4.0 grade point average is the least popular of all Hispanic students, and has 3 fewer friends than a typical white student with a 4.0 grade point average. — Roland G. Fryer Jr.

Every important change in our society, for the good, at least, has taken place because of popular pressure-pressure from below, from the great mass of people. — Edward Abbey

He's drop dead gorgeous and more popular than the Bieber. Well, at least before Beebs went off the rails and abandoned his poor monkey in a foreign country. We settle on the bed — Elle Kennedy

Little Life Lesson 51: When selecting a member of a group to put on the Endangered Species List, it's probably best not to pick the least popular person, because there is always a chance everyone will shrug and be like, "Um, okay. Hey, anyone want pizza?" and leave. — Michele Jaffe

I'd never imagined myself writing at all until I was almost 30. And horror films weren't to my taste, at least the super popular (slasher-y) ones of the day back then. The first novel I ever loved as a kid was Frankenstein, and I was always a crazy Hitchcock and Polanski fan ... but I never saw myself - a square spazzy girl from the suburbs - writing anything that would horrify anyone. Or so I thought ... — Karen Walton

Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few, and the implicit submission with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers. When we enquire by what means this wonder is effected, we shall find, that, as force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is therefore, on opinion only that government is founded, and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and most popular. The soldan of Egypt, or the emperor of Rome, might drive his harmless subjects, like brute beasts, against their sentiments and inclination. But he must at least have led his mamalukes, or praetorian bands, like men, by their opinion. — David Hume

For popular purposes, at least, the aim of literary artists should be similar to that of Rubens in his landscapes, of which, without neglecting the minor traits or finishing, he was chiefly solicitous to present the leading effect, or what we may call the inspiration. — William Benton Clulow

At least half of the popular fallacies about economics come from assuming that economic activity is a zero-sum game, in which what is gained by someone is lost by someone else. But transactions would not continue unless both sides gained, whether in international trade, employment, or renting an apartment. — Thomas Sowell

If sophistication is a matter of being in control of our primary reactions, we may now be sophisticated. At least we shall be fairly confident of ourselves and may, with any luck, be confident of others. Our object will be to enjoy our selves. But to make sure that our names are permanently on the cast list, it will be advisable to be of interest to others. This aim must never be confused with the desire to be popular. — Quentin Crisp

Adjusting to life's changes may be difficult and something you may not be looking forward to experiencing. Be gentle with yourself and you will find clarity on all levels of encouragement in places and by people you least expect. Remember as it has been said before: This too shall pass! — Steven Cuoco

It was really rather wretched that you couldn't will yourself to fall in love, for the very effort can keep falling at bay. Nor could you will yourself to stay that way. Least of all could you will yourself NOT to fall in love, for thus far whatever meager resistance she had put up had only made the compulsion more intense. So you were perpetually tyrannized by a feeling that came and went as it pleased, like a cat with its own pet door. How much more agreeable, if love were something that you stirred up from a reliable recipe, or elected, however perversely, to pour down the drain. Still, there was nothing for it. The popular expression notwithstanding, love was not something you made. Nor could you dispose of the stuff once manifested because it was inconvenient, or even because it was wicked, and ruining your life, and, by the by, someone else's. — Lionel Shriver

Our confused society badly needs a community of contrast, a counterculture of ordinary pilgrims who insist living a different way. Unlike popular culture, we will lavish attention on the least "deserving" in direct opposition to our celebrity culture's emphasis on success, wealth, and beauty. — Philip Yancey

In the fourth century, John Cassian described a condition among his fellow monks that he called "acedia": a "weariness or distress of heart . . . akin to dejection" that took "possession" of unhappy souls and left them lazy, sluggish, restless, and solitary. Later, acedia became widely translated as sloth, one of the seven deadly sins, and blended with melancholy in the popular mind. Both required, at the very least, confession and penitence. — Joshua Wolf Shenk

What would she know about God anyway? The personification of her God, Holmes figured, was surely the popular one: a wrinkled old man sitting omnisciently upon a throne of gold, reigning over creation from within puffy clouds, speaking both graciously and commandingly at the same instant. Her God, no doubt, wore a flowing beard. For Holmes, it was amusing to think that Mrs. Munro's Creator probably looked somewhat like himself- except her God existed as a figment of imagination, and he did not (at least not entirely, he reasoned). — Mitch Cullin

I'd been called a million and a half other colorful names, but those were the most popular. However, labeling me a goth or an emo was just an insult to actual goths and emos. I didn't want a label; I didn't want to fit into a certain crowd. I was who I was, wore what I wore, and did what I did because that was who I was. Or at least the person I'd convinced myself I was. — Nicole Williams

Beans SIDEKICKS: All beans are included in this SuperFood category, though we'll discuss the most popular and readily available beans such as pinto, navy, Great Northern, lima, garbanzo (chickpeas), lentils, green beans, sugar snap peas, and green peas TRY TO EAT: at least four ½-cup servings per week Beans contain: Low-fat protein Fiber B vitamins Iron Folate Potassium Magnesium Phytonutrients — Steven G. Pratt

To do exciting, empowering research and leave it in academic journals and university libraries is like manufacturing unaffordable medicines for deadly diseases. We need to share our work in ways that people can assimilate, not in the private languages and forms of scholars...Those who are hungriest for what we dig up don't read scholarly journals and shouldn't have to. As historians we need to either be artists and community educations or find people who are and figure out how to collaborate with them. We can work with community groups to create original public history projects that really involved people. We can see to it that our work gets into at least the local popular culture through theater, murals, historical novels, posters, films, children's books, or a hundred other art forms. We can work with elementary and high school teachers to create curricula. Medicinal history is a form of healing and its purposes are conscious and overt. — Aurora Levins Morales

The idea that the Big Bang theory allows us to infer that the universe began to exist about 15 billion years ago has attracted the attention of many theists. This theory seemed to confirm or at least lend support to the theological doctrine of creation ex nihilo. Indeed, the suggestion of a divine creation seemed so compelling that the notion that "God created the Big Bang" has taken a hold on popular consciousness and become a staple in the theistic component of 'educated common sense'. By contrast, the response of atheists and agnostics to this development has been comparatively lame. — Quentin Smith

The most 'popular,' the most 'successful' writers among us (for a brief period, at least) are, 99 times out of a hundred, persons of mere effrontery-in a word, busy-bodies, toadies, quacks. — Edgar Allan Poe

I think what it is is, if you're in school and you're not that bright or good-looking or popular or whatever, and one day you say something and someone laughs, well, you sort of grab onto it, don't you? You think, well I run funny and I've got this stupid big face and big thighs and no-one fancies me, but at least I can make people laugh. And it's such a nice feeling, making someone laugh, that maybe you get a bit reliant on it. Like, if you;re not funny then you're not ... anything — David Nicholls

This is the end of everything' (he said), 'at least it is the end of the career of Toad, which is the same thing; the popular — Kenneth Grahame

The writer who position is Christian, and probably also the writer whose position is not, will begin to wonder at this point if there could not be some ugly correlation between our unparalleled prosperity and the stridency of these demands for a literature that shows us the joy of life. He may at least be permitted to ask if these screams for joy would be quite so piercing if joy were really more abundant in our prosperous society. — Flannery O'Connor