If a man would register all his opinions upon love, politics, religion, learning, etc., beginning from his youth and so go on to old age, what a bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions would appear at last!
What the soul sees and has experienced, that it knows; the rest is appearance, prejudice and opinion.
On both sides of a war, how many mothers must face the death of their sons because a politician will not face the death of one misguided opinion?
"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."
He that would win another over to his opinion must seem to harmonize with him at first and humour him in his own way of talking. From my childhood I had an unaccountable turn of thought that way.
There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance.
Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them.
If mankind minus one were of one opinion, then mankind is no more justified in silencing the one than the one - if he had the power - would be justified in silencing mankind.
Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
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.
It takes in reality only one to make a quarrel. It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favour of vegetarianism while the wolf remains of a different opinion.
Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts.
A representative owes the People not only his industry, but his judgment, and he betrays them if he sacrifices it to their opinion.
What are the facts? Again and again and again—what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what "the stars foretell," avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable "verdict of history"; what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!
It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a 'dismal science.' But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.
"When a man gives his opinion he's a man.
When a woman gives her opinion she's a bitch."
Some individuals have developed such strong internal standards that they no longer need the opinion of others to judge whether they have performed a task well or not. The ability to give objective feedback to oneself is in fact the mark of the expert.
. . . The slogan "You are entitled to your opinion" is so often repeated that is near impossible for the brain of a modern Westerner not to have absorbed it.
Like many other views that have at times enjoyed universal assent, however, it isn't true. You don't really have the right to your own opinions. And the idea that you do, beside being false, is forever being invoked when it would be irrelevant even if it were true.
