Ken Kesey Quotes

In this age, in this country, public sentiment is everything. With it, nothing can fail; against it, nothing can succeed. Whoever molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes, or pronounces judicial decisions.

... the English think of an opinion as something which a decent person, if he has the misfortune to have one, does all he can to hide.

American public opinion is like an ocean, it cannot be stirred by a teaspoon.

No law is stronger than is the public sentiment where it is to be enforced.

… moral ideas are not fixed. The attitude of public opinion towards slavery was completely changed in twenty or thirty years.

Public sentiment should be respected.

According to the latest poll, a record 73 percent of Americans think the country is headed in the wrong direction. But the good news: Gas is so expensive that we'll never get there.

Many respected economists and statesmen believe our national debt is neither unwieldy nor a dangerous burden on the country. The trouble is that a vast majority of the American people think otherwise.... It violates basic American ideas of thrift and money management. These strong public feelings cannot be ignored forever.

There's a normal tendency in the campaign, during a crisis, for the country to rally around the White House. vThat may help Al Gore in this campaign, but on the other hand, George W. Bush handled himself so well the other night on foreign policy that I think it fortified him just before this crisis broke.

We're gonna need more than winning elections; we're gonna need to change the way people think, and they're not gonna change what they think if there's no counter to the way liberalism is presented in the pop culture.

Perhaps I'm being too optimistic, but I think this country is finally ready for a black serial killer.

We don't think well of our presidents when they are serving. Even Kennedy, with such a short presidency, was beginning to lose his remarkable appeal to the American people when he was suddenly sainted by death.

One-fifth of Americans, 20% believe that Barak Obama is, himself, a Muslim and in fact - amongst Republicans that number is almost 40%. Polls show in this country, that the more you disagree with Barak Obama's domestic policies, the more likely you are to think that he is a Muslim.

You've got the whole stuff with transgender toilets and stuff like that - that's no way for a government to behave. We're supposed to be against ISIS, so why are we trying to slowly introduce a country-club version of Sharia law in America, you know? It doesn't make any real sense at all. I think there's going to be a lot of energy, there is already a lot of reaction against that - people are prepared to really stand up and be counted for democracy, and in the process to find out what is and what isn't.

Whether they love me or don't love me, they think I know what I'm doing and that people aren't gonna be taking advantage of the country. So if I had my choice, I'd love to keep doing what I'm doing. The country is in serious, serious trouble, like it's never been before. And that's why I'm saying: Would I rather stay in Trump Tower? Would I rather stay and lead the life I'm leading - and you know something about my life. It's very good.

Culturally, it's very hard to change people's attitudes about public space.

I understand what's going on in people's minds, and I think the political leaders better be asking themselves 'why is it, that Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Bernie Sanders and maybe even others are having the impact that they are having?'

I think Hillary [Clinton] hears the anger in a broad swath of the American people, and she says, "OK, how do I help create a future that's good for you?"

There are millions of people fed up with this daily diet of drivel from the Drive-By Media. But the media thinks everybody in America is waiting with bated breath for Trump to be convicted. They're totally, totally out of touch. The disconnect between everything going on in Washington and the real country has never been wider.

A new poll showed that 66% of Americans think President Bush is doing a poor job handling the war in Iraq and the remaining 34% think that Adam and Eve rode dinosaurs to church.

We've already seen, in practically every country around the world where these issues have been covered, that the general public has recoiled at the ideology behind these programs.

On a personal level, Freaking Out is a process whereby an individual casts off outmoded and restricting standards of thinking, dress, and social etiquette in order to express creatively his relationship to his immediate environment and the social structure as a whole.

You can never tell what the public will think! But when something goes well and is well-received, it's a great surprise!

The general assumption, which I think is a valid one, is that a lot of the major media were on their heels a little bit and prone to share the grief of the nation and to give Bush all the support it could.