quotations about opinion
No man can be convinced when he will not.
ROBERT E. HOWARD
Kull: Exile of Atlantis
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
Opinion is more often the cause of discontent than nature.
EPICURUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
Opinion! O opinion! How many men of slightest worth hast thou uplifted high in life's proud ranks?
EURIPIDES
attributed, Day's Collacon
I am not one of those who in expressing opinions confine themselves to facts.
MARK TWAIN
What Is Man?
Men will die for an opinion as soon as for anything else.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Characteristics
Correct opinions, well established on any subject, are the best preservative against the seductions of error.
BISHOP MANT
attributed, Holy Thoughts on Holy Things
Look less at an opinion given, than at the character of him who pronounces it. Incalculable mischief is often done by people unreflectingly receiving as "authority" the opinions of a mere ass, on subjects with which they are imperfectly acquainted, but on which he is supposed to be better informed, yet which are often the farthest from the truth, the judgment of such a person being either swayed by the most absurd prejudices, or blinded by the most ineffable conceit.
CHARLES WILLIAM DAY
The Maxims, Experiences, and Observations of Agogos
The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinion.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
"Abraham Lincoln", Political Essays
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
A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts.
JAMES MADISON
Federalist No. 10, November 22, 1787
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
We accumulate our opinions at an age when our understanding is at its weakest.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
"Notebook H", Aphorisms
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
The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.
JOHN STUART MILL
Utilitarianism, Liberty and Representative Government
Let every one be persuaded in his own mind, is the injunction. By these remarks, I mean not, that one man shall treat those with contempt or indifference, who differ with him in opinion--but the reverse--they should be respected because they have an independence of mind, without which man is a mere automaton.
LEVI CARROLL JUDSON
The Moral Probe: Or, One Hundred and Two Essays on the Nature of Men and Things
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
It is always chilling in friendly intercourse, to say you have no opinion to give. And if you deliver an opinion at all, it is mere stupidity not to do it with an air of conviction and well-founded knowledge. You make it your own in uttering it, and naturally get fond of it.
GEORGE ELIOT
The Mill on the Floss
People of good sense are those whose opinions agree with ours.
H. W. SHAW
attributed, Day's Collacon
Genuine belief ended with persecution. As soon as it was felt that to punish a man for maintaining an independent opinion was shocking and unjust, so soon a doubt had entered whether the faith established was unquestionably true.
JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE
The Nemesis of Faith