quotations about opinion
Opinion is the blind goddess of fools.
GEORGE CHAPMAN
attributed, Day's Collacon
It is not advisable ... to venture unsolicited opinions. You should spare yourself the embarrassing discovery of their exact value to your listener.
AYN RAND
Atlas Shrugged
He who would propagate an opinion must begin by making sure of his ground and holding it firmly. There is as little use in trying to breed from weak opinion as from other weak stock.
SAMUEL BUTLER
Notebooks
It is opinion that has exalted the appearance of virtue above virtue itself; hence the good opinion of men becomes not only useful but necessary to every one, to prevent him sinking below the common level. The ambitious man grasps at it as being necessary to his designs; the vain man sues for it as a testimony of his merit; the honest man demands it as his due; and most men consider it as necessary to their existence.
J. B. BECCARIA
attributed, Day's Collacon
We are most likely to get angry and excited in our opposition to some idea when we ourselves are not quite certain of our own position, and are inwardly tempted to take the other side.
THOMAS MANN
Buddenbrooks
That queen of error, whom we call fancy and opinion, is the more deceitful because she does not deceive always; she would be the infallible rule of truth if she were the infallible rule of falsehood.
PASCAL
attributed, Day's Collacon
Opinion is more often the cause of discontent than nature.
EPICURUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
I have opinions of my own -- strong opinions -- but I don't always agree with them.
GEORGE H. W. BUSH
Spin Magazine, November 1992
It is an unpleasant thing to differ in opinion with the rest of one's species -- it is making a sort of North Pole of one's own, and then setting out in search of it.
LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON
The New Monthly Magazine, 1834
I am not one of those who in expressing opinions confine themselves to facts.
MARK TWAIN
What Is Man?
If an opinion be erroneous, it requires discussion, that its errors may be exposed; if it be true, it will gain adherents in proportion as it is examined.
THOMAS COOPER
Philosophical Writings of Thomas Cooper
The tiniest bits of opinion sown in the minds of children in private life afterwards issue forth to the world, and become its public opinion; for nations are gathered out of nurseries.
SAMUEL SMILES
Character
Public opinion overflows eventually into national behaviour and national behaviour, as things are arranged at present, can make or mar the world. That is why private opinion, and private behaviour, and private conversation are so terrifyingly important.
JAN STRUTHER
"The Weather of the World", A Pocketful of Pebbles
Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
The Statue of Virginia for Religious Freedom
Public opinion is no reformer; it has never corrected the errors, the follies, nor the vices of the human family. Public opinion is a conservative aristocrat, retaining its grasp upon the present, and subjecting the free inquirer after truth to obloquy and reproach.
CHARLES EVERETT TOOTHAKER
The Odd-fellow's Offering
Nothing can contribute more to peace of soul than the lack of any opinion whatever.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
"Notebook E", Aphorisms
Correct opinions, well established on any subject, are the best preservative against the seductions of error.
BISHOP MANT
attributed, Holy Thoughts on Holy Things
There is simply too much to think about. It is hopeless -- too many kinds of special preparation are required. In electronics, in economics, in social analysis, in history, in psychology, in international politics, most of us are, given the oceanic proliferating complexity of things, paralyzed by the very suggestion that we assume responsibility for so much. This is what makes packaged opinion so attractive.
SAUL BELLOW
"There Is Simply Too Much to Think About", It All Adds Up
The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinion.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
"Abraham Lincoln", Political Essays
Persecution is only an attempt to do that overtly and with violence, which the community is, in self-defense, perpetually doing unconsciously and in silence. In many societies variation of belief is practically impossible. In other societies it is permitted only along certain definite lines. In no society that has ever existed, or could be conceived as existing, are opinions equally free (in the scientific sense of the term, not the legal) to develop themselves indifferently in all directions.
ARTHUR BALFOUR
Essays and Addresses