Public Passion Quotes

Thursday night the streets were filled with excited crowds. Till nearly midnight, the streets presented the most animated appearance. The crowd illuminated their passage by rockets and other fireworks, and made the air resound with their deafening cries. No one talks of anything but the necessity for prompt action. It is believed that separate and immediate action on the part of this state will be followed by action on the part of several other southern states forthwith. It is hardly prudent for any man to express his opinion adverse to immediate succession. So heated are the public passions, so intolerant of restraint is the popular will.

I find the public passion for justice quite boring and artificial.

But the question is, do we care enough? Do we care enough to keep standing up for the country that we know is possible, even if it's hard, and even if it's politically uncomfortable? Do we care enough to sustain the passion and the pressure to make our communities safer and our country safer? Do we care enough to do everything we can to spare other families the pain that is felt here today?

The framers hated the tyranny of King George, but they were also afraid of the mob. That's why they put so many checks and balances into our system, to guard against the excesses of a government that might be inflamed by public passion or perverted by a dictator's whim.

Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics. There must be a positive passion for the public good, the public interest, honour, power and glory, established in the minds of the people, or there can be no republican government, nor any real liberty: and this public passion must be superiour to all private passions.

The passions, therefore, not the reason, of the public would sit in judgment. But it is the reason, alone, of the public, that ought to control and regulate the government. The passions ought to be controlled and regulated by the government.

Private passions tire and exhaust themselves, public ones never.

The South Africa public are very passionate and they just care a lot for their team. So if something goes wrong, because they are so emotionally invested in it, they feel as though we are letting them down.

To go against a torrent of public passion is not easy even for independent judges.