George Gallup Quotes

We ought to change polls, not to follow polls.

If we had a consensus we wouldn't have to go to a referendum.

Polls are not the instruments of the mob. They offer the prospect of leadership wedded to a finely calibrated measurement of opinion.

Polls make leadership impossible.

Polling can undermine the ability of officials to lay out, debate, analyze, and implement their plans. By turning to instant [electronic] polls we would eliminate the captain and the officers and leave every shipboard decision to the passengers.

I grieve to see that the Government is governed by the hurrahs of the soldiers or the citizens. It does not lead opinion, but follows it.

I have never seen a poll elect anyone

A political leader must keep looking over his shoulder all the time to see if the boys are still there. If they aren't still there, he's no longer a political leader.

We're not gonna misread our mandate.

There were a number of referendums in '98 that most of the things I voted for passed. That's very satisfying when you feel that most of the country is in step with your views.

We may blunder on in spite of repeated miscalculations of the popular will

When politicians try to govern by raising a wet finger to the wind or on the basis of public opinion polling, the public gets to think that all leaders are interchangeable.

Towering over Presidents and State Governors, over Congress and State Legislatures, over conventions and the vast machinery of party, public opinion stands out in the United States, as the great source of Power.

I trust the American people. They almost always get it right …

In a democracy, as a matter of course, every effort is made to seize upon and create publick opinion, which is, substantially, securing power.

Our leaders now are entirely spooked by polls.

The President does indeed hold the rudder of the Ship of State; he guides, but it is American public opinion which makes the vessel move.

Politicians livelihoods depend on what people think.

If Jesus Christ had taken a poll, he would never have preached the gospel.

The art of leading the vulgar, in itself, does no discredit to its practitioner. Lincoln practiced it unashamed, and so did Webster, Clay, and Henry. What is more, these men practiced it with frank allowance for the naïveté of the people they presumed to lead.

Polls are contradictory when the public opinion is such.

My personal opinion is that a referendum is not necessary to sense public opinion or get a non-partisan consideration of this question. It cannot relieve the President and the Senate of their constitutional powers and duties in respect to foreign relations. I believe the American people prefer to express their will through the representatives selected by them, and in accordance with our long-established constitutional methods.

And I would like to have a good, productive relationship with members of the City Council, but I'm not going to allow them to undermine what the people's choice was and what the people want, which is change.

Polls are for strippers and cross-country skiers.

There can be no assumption that today’s majority is “right”.