There are 2 kinds of artists, essentially: those who want to make something popular, and those who want to make something dignified. But then there is still that rare hybrid case, and perhaps by that...

They were exactly the same morons that laugh like hyenas in the movies at stuff that isn’t funny. I swear to God, if I were a piano player or an actor or something and all...

If you sell, say, two thousand copies, it is the same thing as if you had sold nothing at all because two thousand is too vast—I mean, for the imagination to grasp. While thirty-seven people—perhaps...

I figured it is always better to be unpopular by your own choice.

My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.

There are two ways to become popular; either by setting the cat amongst the pigeons or by getting the cat out of the midst of the pigeons. The latter is better!

Because it’s kind of great, being an idea that everybody likes. But I could never be the idea to myself, not all the way. And Agloe is a place where a paper creation became real....

No popularity exists when tragedy strikes. All that’s left are human hearts and love and ache. We all love each other, deep down, and when we see another soul in pain we can’t help but...

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...

A lot of people don’t like me. I take that as evidence that I have done something beautifully different or something extraordinary.

That little core group of students very quickly became a much larger group of students and the success and popularity of the program began to spread.

Climbing towards fame, recognition and popularity is very much pleasant; but all its sweetness does not count even for a day of going down.

Some books sold because they are (said to be) great. Some are (said to be) great because they sold.

Social standing does not necessarily translate to social acceptance.

There is no point in expending good money on the pursuit of an engine that can power aircraft without propellers. What is wrong with airships anyway? They have borne mankind aloft for over a hundred...

My name had become a brand. (I have mixed emotions about that part of our (Christian media) industry, for sure.)

He still may not win Miss Congeniality, but he will win a popularity contest,

Stop looking for the biggest crowd, and start looking for the right crowd.

Do not yearn to be popular; be exquisite. Do not desire to be famous; be loved. Do not take pride in being expected; be palpable, unmistakable.

To the untrained eye, Ben had nothing, at least by the bizarre rules that governed high school. But really, Ben was one of the few who wasn’t pretending, one of the few who was free.

Broadly put, philosophers think: politicians maneuver. Jefferson’s genius was that he was both and could do both, often simultaneously. Such is the art of power.

Real popularity is taking the time to love others, reaching out, and never being afraid to be the first one dancing. REMEMBER THE GIRL IN PEARLS.

Do not exchange your dignity for popularity.

So many people hate me and love me for the exact same reasons. This is all the proof I need that my opinion about myself is the only opinion I should ever care about.

[Regarding mathematics,] there are now few studies more generally recognized, for good reasons or bad, as profitable and praiseworthy. This may be true; indeed it is probable, since the sensational triumphs of Einstein, that stellar...

You can have all the money in the world, one of the biggest mansions ever built, be one of the most famous people in the world, and still be as unhappy as Mariah Carey was....

Sense isn’t democratic. A senseless opinion that’s advocated by ‘the majority’ is still senseless.

M. Proust was more severe than M. de Caillavet on Anatole France: “He was selfish and supercilious. He had read so much that he had left his heart in other people’s books, and all that...

High School: Oh, man. This is where boys and girls go from tweens to teens and become complicated and cruel. Girls play sick mind games; boys try to pull each other’s penises off and throw...

(John) Adams acknowledged that he had made himself obnoxious to many of his colleagues, who regarded him as a one-man bonfire of the vanities. This never troubled Adams, who in his more contrarian moods claimed...

Facebook page likes don’t read books.

Churchill kept perspective on the crowds that gathered to hear him speak by conceding they would be twice as big if gathered to see him hanged.

To win the people, always cook them some savoury that pleases them.

Popular kids are just a powerful union of needy, insecure losers.

There is usually a moment in the life of a new president when he begins to see himself not as an aspirant desperate to win but as a statesman above the squalor and sweat of...

The Jesus Movement had survived the fad phase and was settling down for the long haul.

I think writing about unhappiness is probably the source of my popularity, if I have any-after all, most people are unhappy, don’t you think?

You want to be popular? It’s easy to do. Just be a total weirdo and love yourself for it.

Popularity has everything to do with business and nothing to do with music.

But there was another class of people, the real people. To this class they all belonged, and in it the great thing was to be elegant, generous, plucky, gay, to abandon oneself without a blush...

he said. ”But I really didn’t come here to win a popularity contest. I came here to do what I thought was right.

It was a lot more fun to get famous than to be famous.

Hanging with people who make you feel unappreciated, for the mere sake of appearing to be popular, is the loneliest place to be.

Somewhere along the way of my illustrious high school career I traded my humanity for a prison of popularity.

The consequences of seeking popularity is not only the chronic feeling of lonliness, but a desire to hide your face from the eyes of the universe.

Teachers knew every one of the students, their secrets, their grades, their home situations. And all the students knew the teachers. It was like teachers were people who finally were the most popular at school.

Normal….What the majority of people look, act, and talk and like.So what if the majority became what we see as wierd now?Would our normal, become our new wierd?

Take the unpopular route. Use the road no one travels by. Think of doing what is uncommon but remarkable. You have absolutely nobody to overtake you on the empty road!

The political nature of man made it highly unlikely that a society designed to meet regularly would remain peaceable. “The way to make friends quarrel is to pit them in disputation under the public eye,”...

My popularity plunged three years ago and I didn’t try to court publicity.