quotations about opinion
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
The presumption that any current opinion is not wholly false, gains in strength according to the number of its adherents.
HERBERT SPENCER
First Principles
Private opinion is weak, but public opinion is almost omnipotent.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
We accumulate our opinions at an age when our understanding is at its weakest.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
"Notebook H", Aphorisms
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
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
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
Let all differences of opinion touching errors, or supposed errors, of the head or heart on the part of any in the past, growing out of these matters, be at once and forever in the deep ocean of oblivion buried.
ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS
Alexander H. Stephens in Public and Private
The more unpopular an opinion is, the more necessary is it that the holder should be somewhat punctilious in his observance of conventionalities generally, and that, if possible, he should get the reputation of being well-to-do in the world.
SAMUEL BUTLER
Notebooks
For most men (till by losing rendered sager)
Will back their own opinions by a wager.
LORD BYRON
Beppo
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
Opinion! O opinion! How many men of slightest worth hast thou uplifted high in life's proud ranks?
EURIPIDES
attributed, Day's Collacon
If the man succeeds in becoming indifferent to the opinions of his neighbors he runs into another danger, that of a distorted and extravagant self of the pride sort, since by the very process of gaining independence and immunity from the stings of depreciation and misunderstanding, he has perhaps lost that wholesome deference to some social tribunal that a man cannot dispense with and remain quite sane.
CHARLES HORTON COOLEY
Human Nature and the Social Order
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
Remember that all is opinion.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
I do not mean to object to a thorough knowledge of the famous works we read. I object only to the interminable comments and bewildering criticisms that teach but one thing: there are as many opinions as there are men.
HELEN KELLER
The Story of My Life
It is better by assenting to truth to conquer opinion, than by assenting to opinion to be conquered by truth.
EPICTETUS
Fragments
If you convinced me
And I convinced you,
Would there not still be
Two points of view?
RICHARD ARMOUR
"Argument"
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