OPINION QUOTES VII

quotations about opinion

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

Tags: George Eliot


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

Tags: James Madison


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

Tags: Elbert Hubbard


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

Tags: Austin O'Malley


Opinions, like weapons, are often made for defense as well as offense.

EDWARD COUNSEL

Maxims

Tags: Edward Counsel


Opinion is a capricious tyrant to which many a freeborn man willingly binds himself a slave.

HORACE SMITH

attributed, Day's Collacon


No feats of heroism are needed to achieve the greatest and most important changes in the existence of humanity; neither the armament of millions of soldiers, nor the construction of new roads and machines, nor the arrangement of exhibitions, nor the organization of workmen's unions, nor revolutions, nor barricades, nor explosions, nor the perfection of aerial navigation; but a change in public opinion.

LEO TOLSTOY

Patriotism and Christianity

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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


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

Tags: Mark Twain


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

Tags: Charles Horton Cooley


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


Remember that all is opinion.

MARCUS AURELIUS

Meditations

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Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Emerson in His Journals

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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

Tags: Thomas Jefferson


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

Tags: Norman MacDonald


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

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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

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It is always chilling in friendly intercourse, to say you have no opinion to give. And if you deliver an opinion at all, it is mere stupidity not to do it with an air of conviction and well-founded knowledge. You make it your own in uttering it, and naturally get fond of it.

GEORGE ELIOT

The Mill on the Floss

Tags: George Eliot


We accumulate our opinions at an age when our understanding is at its weakest.

GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG

"Notebook H", Aphorisms

Tags: Georg Christoph Lichtenberg


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