quotations about opinion
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
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
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
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
It is in numberless instances happier to have a false opinion which we believe true, than a true one of which we doubt.
FULKE GREVILLE
Maxims, Characters, and Reflections
The joy a person is usually seen to express at the conversion of another to his opinion is seldom more than the impulse of egotistical satisfaction at being considered worthy of didactic imitation.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
Public opinion is the pennant on a nation's mast which shows the politician and the editor how to trim the sails.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
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
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
Men of wealth, especially self-made men, have as much pride about their opinions as the haughtiest aristocrat has about his pedigree.
JULIET CAMPBELL
attributed, Day's Collacon
Sometimes I think you don't really believe the things you say; you just like the sound of yourself having opinions.
AMY REED
Crazy
Remember that all is opinion.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
We accumulate our opinions at an age when our understanding is at its weakest.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
"Notebook H", Aphorisms
All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated, and well-supported in logic and argument than others.
DOUGLAS ADAMS
American Atheist Magazine, winter 1998-1999
I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
letter to Francis Hopkinson, March 13, 1789
Pretend what we may, the whole man within us is at work when we form our philosophical opinions. Intellect, will, taste, and passion co-operate just as they do in practical affairs; and lucky it is if the passion be not something as petty as a love of personal conquest over the philosopher across the way.
WILLIAM JAMES
The Sentiment of Rationality
We want at least a modicum of intellectual honesty, and the man who shuffles his opinions in order to match ours is seen through quickly. We want none of him.
ELBERT HUBBARD
The American Bible
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
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
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