quotations about opinion
Nothing can contribute more to peace of soul than the lack of any opinion whatever.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
"Notebook E", Aphorisms
Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
The Statue of Virginia for Religious Freedom
Public opinion overflows eventually into national behaviour and national behaviour, as things are arranged at present, can make or mar the world. That is why private opinion, and private behaviour, and private conversation are so terrifyingly important.
JAN STRUTHER
"The Weather of the World", A Pocketful of Pebbles
There is simply too much to think about. It is hopeless -- too many kinds of special preparation are required. In electronics, in economics, in social analysis, in history, in psychology, in international politics, most of us are, given the oceanic proliferating complexity of things, paralyzed by the very suggestion that we assume responsibility for so much. This is what makes packaged opinion so attractive.
SAUL BELLOW
"There Is Simply Too Much to Think About", It All Adds Up
When you develop your opinions on the basis of weak evidence, you will have difficulty interpreting subsequent information that contradicts these opinions, even if this new information is obviously more accurate.
NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Probable
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
All opinions begin and end in vanity.
MONIMUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
People can tell you to keep your mouth shut, but that doesn't stop you from having your own opinion.
ANNE FRANK
The Diary of a Young Girl
The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects, in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate.
FRANCIS BACON
Novum Organum
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
Change of opinion is increase of knowledge.
URIEL ACOSTA
attributed, Day's Collacon
It is not advisable ... to venture unsolicited opinions. You should spare yourself the embarrassing discovery of their exact value to your listener.
AYN RAND
Atlas Shrugged
Private opinion is weak, but public opinion is almost omnipotent.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
That queen of error, whom we call fancy and opinion, is the more deceitful because she does not deceive always; she would be the infallible rule of truth if she were the infallible rule of falsehood.
PASCAL
attributed, Day's Collacon
We are most likely to get angry and excited in our opposition to some idea when we ourselves are not quite certain of our own position, and are inwardly tempted to take the other side.
THOMAS MANN
Buddenbrooks
The tiniest bits of opinion sown in the minds of children in private life afterwards issue forth to the world, and become its public opinion; for nations are gathered out of nurseries.
SAMUEL SMILES
Character
The greater the man, the less is he opinionative, he depends upon events and circumstances.
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
attributed, Political Aphorisms, Moral and Philosophical Thoughts
False opinions cannot be corrected by fire or the sword.
EMPEROR JULIAN
attributed, Day's Collacon
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
In whatever opinion we are confirmed, we consider our discrimination perfectly judicious; when we change that opinion for another, we are the same; when we relapse into a former tenet, we are so too: in the greatest deviation of principle or profession, we are still confident; and were we to progress in rapid and endless diversity of sentiment or persuasion, confidence, certainty, and inscrutable assurance would, perhaps, ever be our concomitant guides.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections