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Opinion Quotes

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Opinion Quotes

“In a free society with a government based on reason, it is inevitable that there will be no uniform opinion about important issues. Those accustomed to suppression and control by governmental authority see this as leading only to chaos. But a government of the people requires difference of opinion in order to discover truth and to take advantage of the opportunity that only understanding brings.”

PeopleImportantReasonGovernmentOrderOpportunityUnderstandingDifferencesOpinionIssuesAuthorityAdvantageChaosInevitableUniformsAccustomedFree SocietySuppressionImportant IssuesDifferences Of Opinion
Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“There are two ways of forming an opinion. One is the scientific method; the other, the scholastic. To the scientific mind, experimental proof is all-important, and theory is merely a convenience in description, to be junked when it no longer fits. To the academic mind, authority is everything, and facts are junked when they do not fit theory.”

WayMindTwoImportantFactsOpinionTheoryFitAuthorityMethodProofDescriptionAcademicConvenienceTwo WaysScientific MethodScholastics
Author:Robert A. Heinlein
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“I can look back . . . at two distinct periods of opinion whose foundations I have successively come to distrust - a period before 1919 or so, when the weight of classic authority unduly influenced me, and another period from 1919 to about 1925, when I placed too high a value on the elements of revolt, florid colour, and emotional extravagance or intensity.”

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Author:H. P. Lovecraft
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“Although objectively greater demands are placed on this authority, it operates less as a public opinion giving a rational foundation to the exercise of political and social authority, the more it is generated for the purpose of an abstract vote that amounts to no more than an act of acclamation within a public sphere temporarily manufactured for show or manipulation.”

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Author:Jurgen Habermas
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“Most of our fellow-subjects are guided either by the prejudice of education or by a deference to the judgment of those who perhaps in their own hearts disapprove the opinions which they industriously spread among the multitude.”

HeartOpinionSubjectsAuthorityJudgmentPrejudiceFellowsSpreadMultitudesDeference
Book:Works, including the whole contents of Bp. Hurd's edition: withletters and other pieces not found in any previous collection; and Macaulay's essay on his life and works
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“Free thought means fearless thought. It is not deterred by legal penalties, nor by spiritual consequences. Dissent from the Bible does not alarm the true investigator, who takes truth for authority not authority for truth. The thinker who is really free, is independent; he is under no dread; he yields to no menace; he is not dismayed by law, nor custom, nor pulpits, nor society-whose opinion appals so many. He who has the manly passion of free thought, has no fear of anything, save the fear of error.”

MeanDoeSpiritualLawReligionPassionOpinionAtheismAuthorityConsequenceIndependentErrorsFearlessCustomsYieldThinkerDreadPenaltiesNo FearDissentAlarmsMenaceManlyPulpitHave No FearInvestigatorsFree ThoughtDismayed
Book:English Secularism: A Confession of Belief
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“My opinion has always been this, that you ought to never give up as long as you live, even though they have stolen everything from you. If nothing else, you can always call the air you breath your own, or at any rate you can claim that you have it on loan. Yes, lass, last night I ate stolen bread and left my son among men who are going to use pick-handles on the authorities, so I thought I might just as well look you up this morning.”

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Author:Halldór Laxness
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“My library is my kingdom, and here I try to make my rule absolute-shutting off this single nook from wife, daughter and society. Elsewhere I have only a verbal authority, and vague. Unhappy is the man, in my opinion, who has no spot at home where he can be at home to himself-to court himself and hide away.”

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Book:Autobiography: Comprising the Life of the Wisest Man of His Times ...
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“Bowing down in blind credulity, as is my custom, before mere authority and the tradition of the elders, superstitiously swallowing a story I could not test at the time by experiment or private judgment, I am firmly of the opinion that I was born on the 29th of May, 1874, on Campden Hill, Kensington; and baptised according to the formularies of the Church of England in the little church of St. George opposite the large Waterworks Tower that dominated that ridge.”

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Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
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“That the people have an original right to establish, for their future government, such principles as, in their opinion, shall most conduce to their own happiness, is the basis, on which the whole American fabric has been erected.... The principles, therefore, so established, are deemed fundamental. And as the authority, from which they proceed, is supreme ... they are designed to be permanent.... The powers of the legislature are defined, and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken, or forgotten, the constitution is written.”

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Author:John Marshall
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“If anyone dared to assert that the Pontiff had erred in this or that canonisation, we shall say that he is, if not a heretic, at least temerarious, a giver of scandal to the whole Church, an insulter of the saints, a favourer of those heretics who deny the Church's authority in canonizing saints, savouring of heresy by giving unbelievers an occasion to mock the faithful, the assertor of an erroneous opinion and liable to very grave penalties.”

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Author:Pope Benedict XIV
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“The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects, in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate.”

HumansMayOrderFoundUnderstandingSidesNumbersOpinionSupportGreaterAuthorityDrawsAll ThingsWeightAgreeConclusionInstanceFormerDistinctionRejectsNeglectDespiseAdoptedPernicious
Book:The Works of Francis Bacon
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“In all things, therefore, where we have clear evidence from our ideas, and those principles of knowledge I have above mentioned, reason is the proper judge; and revelation, though it may, in consenting with it, confirm its dictates, yet cannot in such cases invalidate its decrees: nor can we be obliged, where we have the clear and evident sentience of reason, to quit it for the contrary opinion, under a pretence that it is matter of faith: which can have no authority against the plain and clear dictates of reason.”

MayIdeasMatterReasonFaithOpinionPrinciplesCasesClearJudgingAuthorityEvidenceAll ThingsContraryQuittingRevelationsEvidentObligedDecreePretence
Book:An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
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