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Popularity isn't just something that happens. You have to give something in exchange for it, and that's the dangerous part of the process.

Popularity is very inconsistent. Sometimes it's there, sometimes it's not. It usually just comes in waves.

Popularity isn't my compass. Unless it can help one to act, to be understood... that's what counts.

My own personal popularity can have no influence over me when the dictates of my best judgment and the obligations of an oath require of me a particular course. Under such circumstances, whether I sink or swim on the tide of popular favor is, to me, a matter of inferior consideration.

I've never had issues with popularity. I was always a popular guy... I've always had friends and loved ones and everything, so it wasn't like, 'Oh man, I gotta fill some void that was left by high school.' I had a great high-school experience.

It would be nice if we could all agree to this proposition: popularity is not the same as achievement.

Popularity is given to you, and if you think that just because you're really popular you're a better person, it could be a real crash when you find the popularity goes down.

Popularity isn't an objective in itself. I'm not in this game.

What's funny is that the idea of popularity - even the use of the word 'popular' - is something that had been mostly absent from my life since junior high. In fact, the hallmark of life after junior high seemed to be the shedding of popularity as a central concern.

We live in a society obsessed with public opinion. But leadership has never been about popularity.