quotations about opinion
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
We accumulate our opinions at an age when our understanding is at its weakest.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
"Notebook H", Aphorisms
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
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
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
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 a most toilsome task to run the wild goose chase after a well-breathed opinionist.
NATHANIEL WARD
The Simple Cobbler of Agawam
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
Men will die for an opinion as soon as for anything else.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Characteristics
If you convinced me
And I convinced you,
Would there not still be
Two points of view?
RICHARD ARMOUR
"Argument"
A great faction is many persons, yet but one party; and that is but one opinion: such a faction is but one man, in point of judgment. One free-spirited man is, in this particular, equal to a whole faction.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
To agree with in opinion, is to honor, as being a sign of approving his judgment and wisdom. To dissent, is dishonor, and an upbraiding of error.
THOMAS HOBBES
Leviathan
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
We are complex, and therefore, in our natural state, inconsistent, beings, and the opinion of this hour need not be the opinion of the next.
JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE
The Nemesis of Faith
Nothing limits intelligence more than ignorance; nothing fosters ignorance more than one's own opinions; nothing strengthens opinions more than refusing to look at reality.
SHERI S. TEPPER
The Visitor
Loyalty to petrified opinions never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul in this world -- and never will.
MARK TWAIN
"Consistency", December 5, 1887
The strength of false opinion is of such force that it overthroweth the love betwixt man and wife, betwixt father and child, betwixt friend and friend, and betwixt master and servant.
DEMOSTHENES
attributed, Day's Collacon
Most people think everybody feels about them much more violently than they actually do; they think other people's opinions of them swing through great arcs of approval or disapproval.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
Tender Is the Night
For to err in opinion, though it be not the part of wise men, is at least human.
PLUTARCH
Against Colotes
Our opinions partake, more or less, of the prejudices of our class, party, or sect. We are all largely pledged, through interest, affection, or passion, to particular classes of opinion, and the strength of efforts to get released from these pledges, is the measure of our advancement.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought