OPINION QUOTES VI

quotations about opinion

Every man speaks of public opinion, and means by public opinion, public opinion minus his opinion.

G. K. CHESTERTON

Heretics

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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


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

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Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are incapable of forming such opinions.

ALBERT EINSTEIN

letter to Leo Baeck, 1953

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The greatest deception which men incur proceeds from their opinions.

LEONARDO DA VINCI

Thoughts on Art and Life

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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

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The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinion.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

"Abraham Lincoln", Political Essays

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I suppose he's entitled to his opinion, but I don't suppose it very hard.

ISAAC ASIMOV

"Seven Steps to Grand Master"

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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

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Men will die for an opinion as soon as for anything else.

WILLIAM HAZLITT

Characteristics

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Men do not care so much for the opinions they hold, as for what they hold by their opinions.

RALPH VENNING

The New Command Renew'd


You tell me whar a man gits his corn pone, en I'll tell you what his 'pinions is.

MARK TWAIN

"Corn Pone Opinions", Europe and Elsewhere

Tags: Mark Twain


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


Opinion! O opinion! How many men of slightest worth hast thou uplifted high in life's proud ranks?

EURIPIDES

attributed, Day's Collacon

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There are a great many opinions in this world, and a good half of them are professed by people who have never been in trouble.

ANTON CHEKHOV

The Mill

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Sometimes I think you don't really believe the things you say; you just like the sound of yourself having opinions.

AMY REED

Crazy


No man can be convinced when he will not.

ROBERT E. HOWARD

Kull: Exile of Atlantis

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Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Emerson in His Journals

Tags: Ralph Waldo Emerson


It's as simple as this. When people don't unload their opinions and feel like they've been listened to, they won't really get on board.

PATRICK LENCIONI

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team


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

Tags: Jonathan Swift