A few more days, and this essay will follow the Defensio Populi to the dust and silence of the upper shelf… For a month or two it will occupy a few minutes of chat in every drawing-room, and a few columns in every magazine; and it will then be withdrawn, to make room for the forthcoming novelties.
Anyone who is popular is bound to be disliked.
Applause waits on success.
Avoid popularity if you would have peace.
Avoid popularity; it has many snares, and no real benefit.
Beware of over-great pleasure in being popular or even beloved.
By common consent of all the nations and all the ages the most valuable thing in this world is the homage of men, whether deserved or undeserved.
Everybody hates me because I'm so universally liked.
Great individuals are not only popular themselves, but they give popularity to whatever they touch.
He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack, for he knew when he pleased he could whistle them back.
He liked to like people, therefore people liked him.
I have never wished to cater to the crowd; for what I know they do not approve, and what they approve I do not know.
I would jump down Etna for any public good — but I hate a mawkish popularity.
I wouldn't say I invented tack, but I definitely brought it to its present high popularity.
I'm shopping around for something to do that no one will like.
I've given parties that have made Indian rajahs green with envy. I've had prima donnas break $10, 000 engagements to come to my smallest dinners. When you were still playing button back in Ohio, I entertained on a cruising trip that was so much fun that I had to sink my yacht to make my guests go home.
Popular opinion is the greatest lie in the world.
Popularity is exhausting. The life of the party almost always winds up in a corner with an overcoat over him.
Popularity is the crown of laurel which the world puts on bad art. Whatever is popular is wrong.
Popularity is the only insult that has not yet been offered to Mr. Whistler.