quotations about opinion
Let us resist the opinion of the world fearlessly, provided only that our self-respect grows in proportion to our indifference.
MADAME SWETCHINE
"Airelles", The Writings of Madame Swetchine
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
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
The greater the man, the less is he opinionative, he depends upon events and circumstances.
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
attributed, Political Aphorisms, Moral and Philosophical Thoughts
Opinion is a medium between knowledge and ignorance.
PLATO
attributed, Day's Collacon
There are as many opinions as there are experts.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
speech, June 12, 1942
Every man speaks of public opinion, and means by public opinion, public opinion minus his opinion.
G. K. CHESTERTON
Heretics
I'll tell you what's the greatest power under heaven, and that is public opinion--the ruling belief in society about what is right and what is wrong, what is honourable and what is shameful. That's the steam that is to work the engines.
GEORGE ELIOT
Felix Holt
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
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
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
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
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
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
In whatever opinion we are confirmed, we consider our discrimination perfectly judicious; when we change that opinion for another, we are the same; when we relapse into a former tenet, we are so too: in the greatest deviation of principle or profession, we are still confident; and were we to progress in rapid and endless diversity of sentiment or persuasion, confidence, certainty, and inscrutable assurance would, perhaps, ever be our concomitant guides.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
Private opinion is weak, but public opinion is almost omnipotent.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
If then I am addressing one of that numerous class, who read to be told what to think, let me advise you to meddle with the book no further. You wish to buy a house ready furnished: do not come to look for it in a stonequarry. But if you are building up your opinions for yourself, and only want to be provided with materials, you may meet with many things in these pages to suit you.
JULIUS HARE
Guesses at Truth
The presumption that any current opinion is not wholly false, gains in strength according to the number of its adherents.
HERBERT SPENCER
First Principles
False opinions cannot be corrected by fire or the sword.
EMPEROR JULIAN
attributed, Day's Collacon
A man should change his opinion as often as he finds it wrong.
ROBERT CARY
attributed, Day's Collacon