quotations about opinion
I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
letter to Francis Hopkinson, March 13, 1789
The mind revolts against certain opinions, as the stomach rejects certain foods.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Characteristics
Unity of opinion is indeed a glorious and desirable thing, and its circle cannot be too strong and extended, if the centre be truth; but if the centre be error, the greater the circumference, the greater the evil.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
The greater the man, the less is he opinionative, he depends upon events and circumstances.
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
attributed, Political Aphorisms, Moral and Philosophical Thoughts
All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated, and well-supported in logic and argument than others.
DOUGLAS ADAMS
American Atheist Magazine, winter 1998-1999
We should never wed an opinion for better or for worse; what we take upon good grounds, we should lay down upon better.
JONATHAN SWIFT
attributed, Day's Collacon
There is no man so blind as one who has made up his mind.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVEN J. ANDERSON
Dune: House Corrino
If the man succeeds in becoming indifferent to the opinions of his neighbors he runs into another danger, that of a distorted and extravagant self of the pride sort, since by the very process of gaining independence and immunity from the stings of depreciation and misunderstanding, he has perhaps lost that wholesome deference to some social tribunal that a man cannot dispense with and remain quite sane.
CHARLES HORTON COOLEY
Human Nature and the Social Order
No man can be convinced when he will not.
ROBERT E. HOWARD
Kull: Exile of Atlantis
It is in numberless instances happier to have a false opinion which we believe true, than a true one of which we doubt.
FULKE GREVILLE
Maxims, Characters, and Reflections
A great faction is many persons, yet but one party; and that is but one opinion: such a faction is but one man, in point of judgment. One free-spirited man is, in this particular, equal to a whole faction.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
It is often very illuminating ... to ask yourself how you got at the facts on which you base your opinion. Who actually saw, heard, felt, counted, named the thing, about which you have an opinion?
WALTER LIPPMANN
Public Opinion
Public Opinion, this invisible, intangible, omnipresent, despotic tyrant; this thousand-headed Hydra--the more dangerous for being composed of individual mediocrities.
HELENA PETROVNA BLAVATSKY
Spiritual Scientist
If you convinced me
And I convinced you,
Would there not still be
Two points of view?
RICHARD ARMOUR
"Argument"
You deal in the raw material of opinion, and, if my convictions have any validity, opinion ultimately governs the world.
WOODROW WILSON
address to the Associated Press, April 20, 1915
Sometimes I think you don't really believe the things you say; you just like the sound of yourself having opinions.
AMY REED
Crazy
The more unpopular an opinion is, the more necessary is it that the holder should be somewhat punctilious in his observance of conventionalities generally, and that, if possible, he should get the reputation of being well-to-do in the world.
SAMUEL BUTLER
Notebooks
The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holder's lack of rational conviction. Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
introduction, Sceptical Essays
Opinions derived from long experience are exceedingly valuable.
PETER BARLOW
Second report addressed to the directors and proprietors of the London and Birmingham Railway company, founded on an inspection of, and experiments made on the Liverpool and Manchester railway
Opponents fancy they refute us when they repeat their own opinion and pay no attention to ours.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe