quotations about opinion
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
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
The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinion.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
"Abraham Lincoln", Political Essays
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
It is often easier as well as more advantageous to conform ourselves to other men's opinions than to bring them over to ours.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Society and of Conversation", Les Caractères
Change of opinion is increase of knowledge.
URIEL ACOSTA
attributed, Day's Collacon
There are as many opinions as there are experts.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
speech, June 12, 1942
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
Opinions, like weapons, are often made for defense as well as offense.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
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
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
A man should change his opinion as often as he finds it wrong.
ROBERT CARY
attributed, Day's Collacon
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
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
People of good sense are those whose opinions agree with ours.
H. W. SHAW
attributed, Day's Collacon
It is only natural, of course, that each man should think his own opinions best: the crow loves his fledgling, and the ape his cub.
THOMAS MORE
Utopia
The greatest deception which men incur proceeds from their opinions.
LEONARDO DA VINCI
Thoughts on Art and Life
It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horse races.
MARK TWAIN
The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson