Opinion

Opinions derived from long experience are exceedingly valuable.

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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.

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Sure 'tis an orthodox opinion,That grace is founded in dominion.

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He that complies against his willIs of his own opinion still.

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With books and money placed, for showAnd for his false opinion pay.

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He who would propagate an opinion must begin by making sure of his ground and holding it firmly. There is as little use in trying to breed from weak opinion as from other weak stock.

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The more unpopular an opinion is, the more necessary is it that the holder should be somewhat punctilious in his observance of conventionalities generally, and that, if possible, he should get the reputation of being well-to-do in the world.

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Many, if not most, good ideas die young - mainly from neglect on the part of the parents, but sometimes from over-fondness. Once well started, an opinion had better be left to shift for itself.

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For most men (till by losing rendered sager)Will back their own opinions by a wager.

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The world is governed much more by opinion than by laws. It is not the judgment of courts, but the moral judgment of individuals and masses of men, which is the wall of defense around property and life.

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A man's opinion on tramcars matters; his opinion on Botticelli matters; his opinion on all things does not matter. He may turn over and explore a million objects, but he must not find that strange object, the universe; for if he does he will have a religion, and be lost. Everything matters — except everything.

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Every man speaks of public opinion, and means by public opinion, public opinion minus his opinion.

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Every war is the result of a difference of opinion. Maybe the biggest questions can only be answered by the greatest of conflicts.

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Genuine belief ended with persecution. As soon as it was felt that to punish a man for maintaining an independent opinion was shocking and unjust, so soon a doubt had entered whether the faith established was unquestionably true.

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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.

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The unfortunate Ladurlad did not desire the sleep that for ever fled his weary eyelids with more earnestness than most people seek the deep slumber of a decided opinion.

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Pretend what we may, the whole man within us is at work when we form our philosophical opinions. Intellect, will, taste, and passion co-operate just as they do in practical affairs; and lucky it is if the passion be not something as petty as a love of personal conquest over the philosopher across the way.

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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.

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But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.

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Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

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If then I am addressing one of that numerous class, who read to be told what to think, let me advise you to meddle with the book no further. You wish to buy a house ready furnished: do not come to look for it in a stonequarry. But if you are building up your opinions for yourself, and only want to be provided with materials, you may meet with many things in these pages to suit you.

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Public opinion, or what passes for public opinion, is not invariably a moderating force in the jungle of politics.

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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.

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New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.

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This imputation of inconsistency is one to which every sound politician and every honest thinker must sooner or later subject himself. The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinion.

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Consider that everything is opinion, and opinion is in thy power.

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Opinions cannot survive if one has no chance to fight for them.

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If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.

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The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.

— Opinion

To refuse a hearing to an opinion, because they are sure that it is false, is to assume that their certainty is the same thing as absolute certainty. All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility. Its condemnation may be allowed to rest on this common argument, not the worse for being common.

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The greater the man, the less is he opinionative, he depends upon events and circumstances.

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In a Society in which there is no law, and in theory no compulsion, the only arbiter of behaviour is public opinion. But public opinion, because of the tremendous urge to conformity in gregarious animals, is less tolerant than any system of law.

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For to err in opinion, though it be not the part of wise men, is at least human.

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It is more true to say that our opinions depend upon our lives and habits than to say that our lives depend upon our opinions, which is only now and then true.

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Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

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Private opinion creates public opinion. 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.

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Quot homines tot sententiae: suo quoque mos. As many opinions as there are men; each a law to himself.

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In the United States, the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own.

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

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Loyalty to petrified opinions never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul in this world — and never will.

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The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.

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We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking. And out of it we get an aggregation which we consider a boon. Its name is public opinion. It is held in reverence. Some think it the voice of God.

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Inconsistencies of opinion, arising from changes of circumstances, are often justifiable.

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You deal in the raw material of opinion, and, if my convictions have any validity, opinion ultimately governs the world.

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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.

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Where an opinion is general, it is usually correct.

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Facts are cheels that winna ding, An' downa be disputed.

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Nor prints of Precedent for poore men's facts.

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Stiff in opinion, always in the wrong.

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As the saying is, So many heades, so many wittes.

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Intolerant only of intolerance.

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It is not often that an opinion is worth expressing, which cannot take care of itself.

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Monuments of the safety with which errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

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Dogmatism is puppyism come to its full growth.

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How long halt ye between two opinions?

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We hardly find any persons of good sense save those who agree with us.

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The deep slumber of a decided opinion.

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Even opinion is of force enough to make itself to be espoused at the expense of life.

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There never was in the world two opinions alike, no more than two hairs, or two grains; the most universal quality is diversity.

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He (Cato) never gave his opinion in the Senate upon any other point whatever, without adding these words, "And, in my opinion Carthage should be destroyed." ["Delenda est Carthago."]

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Some praise at morning what they blame at night,But always think the last opinion right.

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Men who borrow their opinions can never repay their debts.

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I have boughtNot cast aside so soon.

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Opinion's but a fool, that makes us scanThe outward habit by the inward man.

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Facts are stubborn things.

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"That was excellently observed," say I when I read a passage in another where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, then I pronounce him to be mistaken.

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Matters of fact, as Mr. Budgell somewhere observes, are very stubborn things.

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The matter does not appear to me now as it appears to have appeared to me then.

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Predominant opinions are generally the opinions of the generation that is vanishing.

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There is probably an element of malice in the readiness to overestimate people; we are laying up for ourselves the pleasure of later cutting them down to size.

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A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

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If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

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For the great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie—deliberate, contrived, and dishonest—but the myth—persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinions without the discomfort of thought.

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I have got you together to hear what I have written down. I do not wish your advice about the main matter—for that I have determined for myself.

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We cannot ask a man what he will do, and if we should, and he should answer us, we should despise him for it. Therefore we must take a man whose opinions are known.

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This imputation of inconsistency is one to which every sound politician and every honest thinker must sooner or later subject himself. The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinion.

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There is the grand truth about Nathaniel Hawthorne. He says NO! in thunder; but the Devil himself cannot make him say yes. For all men who say yes, lie; and all men who say no,—why, they are in the happy condition of judicious, unincumbered travellers in Europe; they cross the frontiers into Eternity with nothing but a carpet-bag,—that is to say, the Ego. Whereas those yes-gentry, they travel with heaps of baggage, and, damn them! they will never get through the Custom House.

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There are as many opinions as there are experts.

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After the war, and until the day of his death, his position on almost every public question was either mischievous or ridiculous, and usually both.

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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.

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