OPINION QUOTES VI

quotations about opinion

The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holder's lack of rational conviction. Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately.

BERTRAND RUSSELL

introduction, Sceptical Essays

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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 mind revolts against certain opinions, as the stomach rejects certain foods.

WILLIAM HAZLITT

Characteristics

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I suppose he's entitled to his opinion, but I don't suppose it very hard.

ISAAC ASIMOV

"Seven Steps to Grand Master"

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Men will die for an opinion as soon as for anything else.

WILLIAM HAZLITT

Characteristics

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Opinion is more often the cause of discontent than nature.

EPICURUS

attributed, Day's Collacon


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

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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


Sometimes I think you don't really believe the things you say; you just like the sound of yourself having opinions.

AMY REED

Crazy


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

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People of good sense are those whose opinions agree with ours.

H. W. SHAW

attributed, Day's Collacon


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

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The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinion.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

"Abraham Lincoln", Political Essays

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The greatest deception which men incur proceeds from their opinions.

LEONARDO DA VINCI

Thoughts on Art and Life

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There are a great many opinions in this world, and a good half of them are professed by people who have never been in trouble.

ANTON CHEKHOV

The Mill

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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

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If I hold my own opinion to be absolute truth, my own judgment to be the only measure of truth, I constitute myself God.

SABINE BARING-GOULD

The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity

Tags: truth


Opinion! O opinion! How many men of slightest worth hast thou uplifted high in life's proud ranks?

EURIPIDES

attributed, Day's Collacon

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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


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

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