quotations about opinion
Opinion is more often the cause of discontent than nature.
EPICURUS
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attributed, Day's Collacon
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
Do not despise the opinion of the world; you might as well say that you care not for the light of the sun because you can use a candle.
LEON GOZLAN
attributed, Day's Collacon
No man can be convinced when he will not.
ROBERT E. HOWARD
Kull: Exile of Atlantis
Opinion is the blind goddess of fools.
GEORGE CHAPMAN
attributed, Day's Collacon
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
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
False opinions cannot be corrected by fire or the sword.
EMPEROR JULIAN
attributed, Day's Collacon
The presumption that any current opinion is not wholly false, gains in strength according to the number of its adherents.
HERBERT SPENCER
First Principles
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
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
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
All classes of persons are ever ready to give their opinions; the lawyers must be excepted, they sell theirs.
GEORGE DENISON PRENTICE
Prenticeana
Sometimes I think you don't really believe the things you say; you just like the sound of yourself having opinions.
AMY REED
Crazy
There is no man so blind as one who has made up his mind.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVEN J. ANDERSON
Dune: House Corrino
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
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
Opinion, that great fool, makes fools of all,
And once I feared her, till I met a mind,
Whose grave instructions philosophical
Toss'd it like dust upon a March strong wind.
NATHANIEL FIELD
"To My Loved Friend, Master John Fletcher, On His Pastoral"
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
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