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Opinion Quotes

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Opinion Quotes

“Public opinion is a second conscience.”

Opinion Conscience Public Opinion Second Chance

Author:William Rounseville Alger

“The hell of human suffering, evil and oppression is paved with good intentions. The men who have most injured and oppressed humanity, who have most deeply sinned against it, were according to their standards and their conscience good men; what was bad in them, what wrought moral evil and cruelty, treason to truth and progress, was not at all in their intentions, in their purpose, in their personal character, but in their opinions.”

“Conscience, the organ of feeling which dominates us and of the opinions which rule us, is presumptuous in the strong, timid in the weak and unfortunate, uneasy in the undecided.”

Feelings Strong Opinion Conscience Weak Organs Unfortunate Uneasy Presumptuous Undecided

Book:La Bruyère and Vauvenargues: Selections from the Characters, Reflexions and Maxims

Source: La Bruyère and Vauvenargues: Selections from the Characters, Reflexions and Maxims

“But what of the voice and judgment of conscience? The difficulty is that we have a conscience behind our conscience, an intellectual one behind the moral. ... We can see quite well that our opinions of what is noble and good, our moral valuations, are powerful levers where action is concerned; but we must begin by refining these opinions and independently creating for ourselves new tables of values.”

Wells Action Values Voice Powerful Behinds Moral Opinion Judgment Creating Intellectual Conscience Concerned Difficulty Tables Noble Levers Refining Valuation

Author:Georg Brandes

“The truly great consider, first, how they may gain the approbation of God, and, secondly, that of their own conscience. Having done this, they would then willingly conciliate the good opinion of their fellow-men. But the truly little reverse the thing. The primary object with them is to secure the applause of their fellow-men; and having effected this, the approbation of God and their own conscience may follow on as they can.”

Men Firsts May Littles Done Opinion Atheism Objects Conscience Gains Fellows Secure Primaries Reverse Fellow Man Applause

Book:Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan

Source: Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan

“There is nothing in the world that could make me turn from the law. With a clear conscience, I am prepared to answer for each and every one of my political and administrative orders and actions, and to do so before the court of public opinion.”

World Action Law Political Order Turns Answers Opinion Clear Conscience Court Prepared Public Opinion Administrative Clear Conscience

Author:Djemal Pasha

“Majorities can be wrong, majorities can overrule rights of minorities. If majorities ruled, we could still have slavery. 80% of the population once enslaved 20% of the population. While run by majority rule that is ok. That is very flawed notion of what democracy is. Democracy has to take into account several things - proportionate requirements of people, not just needs of the majority, but also needs of the minority. Majority, especially in societies where the media manipulates public opinion, can be totally wrong and evil. People have to act according to conscience and not by majority vote.”

“Most men's conscience, habits, and opinions are borrowed from convention and gather continually comforting assurances from the same social consensus that originally suggested them.”

Men Social Opinion Habit Conscience Conventions Assurance Comforting Consensus Borrowed

Book:The Life of Reason: Human Understanding

Source: The Life of Reason: Human Understanding

“The art of manipulating public opinion, which is a necessary art for the democratic politician, and, like other arts, is sometimespractised with greater virtuosity by knaves than by honest men (who are apt to disdain it), has a different technique in different countries. For instance, in England we excel in whitewashing: in America they excel in tarring and feathering. We strain our nerves and stretch our consciences to avoid a scandal: Americans do the same to make one.”

“A man's own conscience is his sole tribunal, and he should care no more for that phantom "opinion" than he should fear meeting a ghost if he crossed the churchyard at dark.”

Ifs Men Should Care Dark Opinion Conscience Meetings Ghost Sole Phantoms Tribunals

Author:Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

“We are bound to maintain public liberty, and, by the example of our own systems, to convince the world that order and law, religion and morality, the rights of conscience, the rights of persons, and the rights of property, may all be preserved and secured, in the most perfect manner, by a government entirely and purely elective. If we fail in this, our disaster will be significant, and will furnish an argument, stronger than has yet been found, in support of those opinions which maintain that government can rest safely on nothing but power and coercion.”

Source: A Discourse, Delivered at Plymouth, December 22, 1820: In Commemoration of the First Settlement of New-England

“It would be an absurdity for jurors to be required to accept the judge's view of the law, against their own opinion, judgment, and conscience.”

Would Be Law Views Accepting Opinion Judging Judgment Conscience Absurdity Jurors Nullification Judge And Jury

Author:John Adams

“Since natural law was thought to be accessible to the ordinary man, the theory invited each juror to inquire for himself whether a particular rule of law was consonant with principles of higher law. This view is reflected in John Adams' statement that it would be an 'absurdity' for jurors to be required to accept the judge's view of the law, 'against their own opinion, judgment, and conscience.'”

“You cannot drag a man's conscience before any tribunal, and no one is answerable for his religious opinions to any power on earth.”

Men Earth Religious Opinion Conscience Drag Tribunals

Book:Napoleon in his own words from the French of Jules Bertaut

Source: Napoleon in his own words from the French of Jules Bertaut