“Public opinion is no more than this, / What people think that other people think.”

— Alfred Austin, Prince Lucifer, 1887

About Alfred Austin

1835 – 1913

English poet, Poet Laureate from 1896 to 1913.

“Knowledge is to the imagination what fuel is to flame.”

“Hospitality should be accidental, spontaneous, and impulsive, not pre-arranged and calculated.”

“Let your house / Be spacious more than splendid, and be books / And busts your most conspicuous furniture.”

“Why, what is weeping and sighing? A judgement. What is misfortune? A judgement.”

“Remember that all is opinion.”

“The universe is flux, life is opinion.”

“He had only one vanity; he thought he could give advice better than any other person.”

“Perfection of means and confusion of goals seem—in my opinion—to characterize our age.”

“The value of a college education is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think.”