quotations about opinion
It is better by assenting to truth to conquer opinion, than by assenting to opinion to be conquered by truth.
EPICTETUS
Fragments
People of good sense are those whose opinions agree with ours.
H. W. SHAW
attributed, Day's Collacon
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
Change of opinion is increase of knowledge.
URIEL ACOSTA
attributed, Day's Collacon
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
Opinion, that great fool, makes fools of all,
And once I feared her, till I met a mind,
Whose grave instructions philosophical
Toss'd it like dust upon a March strong wind.
NATHANIEL FIELD
"To My Loved Friend, Master John Fletcher, On His Pastoral"
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
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
Opinion! O opinion! How many men of slightest worth hast thou uplifted high in life's proud ranks?
EURIPIDES
attributed, Day's Collacon
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
Sometimes I think you don't really believe the things you say; you just like the sound of yourself having opinions.
AMY REED
Crazy
Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are incapable of forming such opinions.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
letter to Leo Baeck, 1953
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
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
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
Remember that all is opinion.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
The greatest deception which men incur proceeds from their opinions.
LEONARDO DA VINCI
Thoughts on Art and Life
We should never wed an opinion for better or for worse; what we take upon good grounds, we should lay down upon better.
JONATHAN SWIFT
attributed, Day's Collacon
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