Opinion

If in the last few years you haven't discarded a major opinion or acquired a new one, check your pulse. You may be dead. ~~ Gelett Burgess

Refusing to have an opinion is a way of having one, isn't it? ~~ Luigi Pirandello

When we are young, we change our opinions too often, when we are old, too seldom. ~~ Josh Billings

I express many absurd opinions, but I am not the first man to do it; American freedom consists largely in talking nonsense. ~~ Edgar Watson Howe

It rarely adds anything to say, "In my opinion" -- not even modestly. Naturally a sentence is only your opinion; and you are not the Pope. ~~ Paul Goodman

In the human mind one-sidedness has always been the rule, and many-sidedness the exception. Hence, even in revolutions of opinion, one part of the truth usually sets while the other rises. ~~ John Stuart Mill

Success is always somebody else's opinion of you; but it doesn’t amount to a damn compared to your own opinion of yourself. ~~ Jack Lemmon

It is the nature of the artist to mind excessively what is said about him. Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others. ~~ Virginia Woolf

The average man's opinions are much less foolish than they would be if he thought for himself. ~~ Bertrand Russell

There's one thing that always interests me about you good people, not your certainty that the rest of us are swine,--no doubt we are--but your certainty that your opinions are pearls. ~~ Margaret Deland

I have just been given a very engaging Persian kitten, named after St. Philip Neri (who was very sound on cats) and his opinion is that I have been given to him. ~~ Evelyn Underhill

No woman ever falls in love with a man unless she has a better opinion of him than he deserves. ~~ Ed Howe

There is so much to be said in favor of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated it keeps us in touch with ignorance of the community. ~~ Oscar Wilde

What we have to do is to be forever curiously testing new opinions and courting new impressions. ~~ Walter Pater

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions. ~~ Albert Einstein

I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine. ~~ Bertrand Russell

The most difficult secret for a man to keep is his own opinion of himself. ~~ Marcel Pagnol

Bigotry may be roughly defined as the anger of men who have no opinions. ~~ G. K. Chesterton

If we are to regard ourselves as a grown-up nation--and anything else will henceforth be mortally dangerous--then we must, as the Biblical phrase goes, put away childish things; and among these childish things the first to go, in my opinion, should be self-idealization and the search for absolutes in world affairs: for absolute security, absolute amity, absolute harmony. ~~ George F. Kennan

What matters in a character is not whether one holds this or that opinion… what matters is how proudly one upholds it. ~~ Madame de Stael

Always be tolerant with those who disagree with you. After all, they have a perfect right to their ridiculous opinions. ~~ Unattributed

Change of opinion is often the progress of sound thought and growing knowledge. ~~ Unattributed

I'm a vague, conjunctured personality, more made up of opinions and academic prepossessions than of human traits and red corpuscles. ~~ Woodrow Wilson

I like to help women help themselves, as that is, in my opinion, the best way to settle the woman question. Whatever we can do and do well we have a right to, and I don't think anyone will deny us. ~~ Louisa May Alcott

You have no idea of what a poor opinion I have of myself, and how little I deserve it. ~~ Sir William S. Gilbert

You can ruin your life in an hour by listening to [the] puerile opinions [of little souls]. ~~ David Seabury

Good and evil … are not what popular opinion accounts them; many who seem to be struggling with adversity are happy; many, amid great affluence, are miserable. ~~ Tacitus

It is the nature, and the advantage, of strong people that they can bring out the crucial questions and form a clear opinion about them. The weak always have to decide between alternatives that are not their own. ~~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The people who say: "You are what you eat" have always seemed addled to me. In my opinion, you are what you think, and if you don't think, you can eat all the meat in Kansas City and still be nothing but a vegetable. ~~ Russell Baker [The Rescue of Miss Yaskell]

[On his father:] By looking at us, listening to us, hearing us, respecting our opinions, affirming our value, giving us a sense of dignity, he was unquestionably our most influential teacher. ~~ Leo Buscaglia

A critical, strong speech made by a man is "blunt" or "outspoken" or "pulls no punches." A speech of similar force and candor made by a woman is "waspish," "sarcastic," or "cutting." A man of strong opinions is defined as having "deep convictions." A woman so constituted is merely "opinionated," and always "aggressive." ~~ Marya Mannes

No matter how well you perform there's always somebody of intelligent opinion who thinks it's lousy. ~~ Laurence Olivier, Baron Olivier of Brighton

I often marvel how it is that though each man loves himself beyond all else, he should yet value his own opinion of himself less than that of others. ~~ Marcus Aurelius

The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls. ~~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton

To obtain a man's opinion of you, make him mad. ~~ Unattributed

The world is not run by thought, nor by imagination, but by opinion. ~~ Elizabeth Drew

The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind. ~~ William Blake

It is pure illusion to think that an opinion which passes down from century to century, from generation to generation, may not be entirely false. ~~ Pierre Boyle

Silence is golden, but I must say that some of the most discreet and dignified fools that I have ever met have been those who never ventured an opinion on any subject. ~~ Josh Billings

Mob law is the most forcible expression of an abnormal public opinion; it shows that society is rotten to the core. ~~ Timothy Thomas Fortune

Every man … should periodically be compelled to listen to opinions which are infuriating to him. To hear nothing but what is pleasing to one is to make a pillow of the mind. ~~ St. John Ervine

Opinions founded on prejudice are always sustained with the greatest violence. ~~ Lord Francis Jeffrey

The reasons which any man offers to you for his own conduct betray his opinion of your character. ~~ Sir Arthur Helps

No mind should submit their mind to another mind: He that complies against his will is of his own opinion still--that's my motto. I won't be brainwashed. ~~ M. Spark

What you see is news, what you know is background, what you feel is opinion. ~~ Lester Markel

Do not think of knocking out another person's brains because he differs in opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself on the head because you differ from yourself ten years ago. ~~ Horace Mann

It often takes more courage to change one's opinion than to stick to it. ~~ George Christoph Lichtenberg

I have opinions of my own -- strong opinions -- but I don't always agree with them. ~~ George Herbert Walker Bush

If you leave home for a while … you question the conventional wisdom you've grown up with. That doesn't mean you have to change your opinions or who you are, but it's good to ask the questions. ~~ Molly Ringwald

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd. ~~ Bertrand Russell

Nothing is more unjust or capricious than public opinion. ~~ William Hazlitt

I have long been of the opinion that if work were such a splendid thing the rich would have kept more of it for themselves. ~~ Bruce Grocott

Popular opinions, on subjects not palpable to sense, are often true, but seldom or never the whole truth. ~~ John Stuart Mill

Common sense appears to be only another name for the thoughtlessness of the unthinking. It is made of the prejudices of childhood, the idiosyncrasies of individual character and the opinion of the newspapers. ~~ William Somerset Maugham

It is just when opinions universally prevail and we have added lip service to their authority that we become sometimes most keenly conscious that we do not believe a word that we are saying. ~~ Virginia Woolf

Promote then as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened. ~~ George Washington

What plays the mischief with the truth is that men will insist upon the universal application of a temporary feeling or opinion. ~~ Herman Melville

One of the commonest ailments of the present day is premature formation of opinion. ~~ Frank McKinney ("Kin") Hubbard

What we call public opinion is generally public sentiment. ~~ Benjamin Disraeli

No one can have a higher opinion of him than I have, and I think he's a dirty little beast. ~~ W. S. Gilbert

Loyalty to a petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul. ~~ Mark Twain

Differences in political opinion are as unavoidable as, to a certain point, they may perhaps be necessary. ~~ George Washington

I've never had a humble opinion in my life. If you're going to have one, why bother to be humble about it? ~~ Joan Baez

We seek our happiness outside ourselves, and in the opinion of men who we know to be flatterers, insincere, unjust, full of envy, caprice, and prejudice. How absurd. ~~ Jean de La Bruyere

[After her mastectomy:] The part of me that is missing didn't think, laugh, or contribute a single thing to this planet. Without a breast, I still form coherent sentences and intelligent opinions. I defy anyone to read my columns and tell me which ones were written by a single-breasted writer. ~~ Erma Bombeck

We can't deal with opinions. All we can do is weave a little romance as pleasantly as we know how. ~~ D. W. Griffith

The opinions we hold of one another, our relations with friends and kinfolk are in no sense permanent, save in appearance, but are as eternally fluid as the sea itself. ~~ Marcel Proust

A prig is a fellow who is always making you a present of his opinions. ~~ George Eliot [Middlemarch]

In the choice of a horse and a wife, a man must please himself, ignoring the opinion and advice of friends. ~~ George John Whyte-Melville

Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. ~~ John F. Kennedy

I agree with no man's opinion. I have some of my own. ~~ Ivan Turgenev

He that complies against his will
Is of his own opinion still. ~~ Samuel Butler

It is my settled opinion, after some years as a political correspondent, that no one is attracted to a political career in the first place unless he is socially or emotionally crippled. ~~ Auberon Waugh

Nobody holds a good opinion of a man who has a low opinion of himself. ~~ Anthony Trollope

At the bottom of a good deal of the bravery that appears in the world there lurks a miserable cowardice. Men will face powder and steel because they cannot face public opinion. ~~ E. H. Chapin

People do not seem to talk for the sake of expressing their opinions, but to maintain an opinion for the sake of talking. ~~ William Hazlitt

A cat's got her own opinion of human beings. She don't say much, but you can tell enough to make you anxious not to hear the whole of it. ~~ Jerome K. Jerome

It is an odd but universally held opinion that anyone who doesn't drink must be an alcoholic. ~~ P. J. O'Rourke

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]

Opinions have vested interests just as men have. ~~ Samuel Butler

Only the foolish and the dead never change their opinions. ~~ Unattributed

Kiss the hand of him who can renounce what he has publicly taught, when convicted of his error; and who, with heartfelt joy, embraces the truth, though with the sacrifice of favorite opinions. ~~ Johann Kaspar Lavater

There never were, in the world, two opinions alike, no more than two hairs, or two grains; the most universal quality is diversity. ~~ Michel de Montaigne

Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinion of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth. ~~ Katherine Mansfield

Judge men not by their opinions, but by what their opinions have made of them. ~~ Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Opinion is ultimately determined by the feelings, and not by the intellect. ~~ Herbert Spencer

If you want to know your true opinion of someone, watch the effect produced in you by the first sight of a letter from him. ~~ Arthur Schopenhauer

In a democracy such as ours military policy is dependent on public opinion. ~~ George C. Marshall (see Said Who?)

There are as many opinions as there are experts. ~~ Franklin Delano Roosevelt

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. ~~ Mavis Gallant

Intolerance is natural and logical, for in every dissenting opinion lies an assumption of superior wisdom. ~~ Ambrose Bierce

General opinion is the opinion of one or a few for which the public is held responsible. ~~ Muhammad Hijazi

Men get opinions as boys learn to spell
By reiteration chiefly. ~~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Let us always remember that he does not really believe his own opinions who dares not give free scope to his opponent. ~~ Wendell Phillips

Insecure people have a special sensitivity for anything that finally confirms their own low opinion of themselves. ~~ Sue Grafton

Most men are not scolded out of their opinion. ~~ Martin Van Buren

If we could see ourselves as others see us, it would probably confirm our opinion of them. ~~ Robert B. Fleming

A good sleep and some exercise changes many opinions. ~~ R. E. Phillips

It takes only in reality one to make a quarrel. It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism, while the wolf remains of a different opinion. ~~ William Ralph Inge

'Tis my opinion every man cheats in his own way, and he is only honest who is not discovered. ~~ Susannah Centlivre

An opinion, right or wrong, can never constitute a moral offense, nor be in itself a moral obligation. It may be mistaken; it may involve an absurdity, or a contradiction. It is a truth; or it is an error; it can never be a crime or a virtue. ~~ Frances Wright

Instant opinion is an oxymoron. You don't get real opinions in an instance. You get reactions. ~~ Ellen Goodman

We live in an atmosphere of shame. We are ashamed of everything that is real about us; ashamed of ourselves, of our relatives, of our incomes, of our accents, of our opinion, of our experience, just as we are ashamed of our naked skins. ~~ George Bernard Shaw

Predominant opinions are generally the opinions of the generation that is vanishing. ~~ Benjamin Disraeli

God gave us men. A time like this demands
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands!
Men whom the lust of office does not kill,
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy,
Men who possess opinions and a will,
Men who love honor, men who cannot lie. ~~ J. G. Holland

The antiquity and general acceptance of an opinion is no assurance of its truth. ~~ Pierre Bayle

I think it's one of the scars in our culture that we have too high an opinion of ourselves. We align ourselves with the angels instead of the higher primates. ~~ Angela Carter

Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they love the truth. ~~ Joseph Joubert

A government can be no better than the public opinion that sustains it. ~~ Franklin Delano Roosevelt

I do not believe the people who tell me that they do not care a row of pins for the opinion of their fellows. It is the bravado of ignorance. ~~ William Somerset Maugham

I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect. ~~ Edward Gibbon

We are not troubled by things, but by the opinion which we have of things. ~~ Epictetus