Quotes About Opinion

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

A man should always have these two rules in readiness. First, to do only what the reason of your ruling and legislating faculties suggest for the service of man. Second, to change your opinion whenever anyone at hand sets you right and unsettles you in an opinion, but this change of opinion should come only because you are persuaded that something is just or to the public advantage, not because it appears pleasant or increases your reputation.

I guess each of us, at some time, finds one person with whom we are compelled towards absolute honesty, one person whose good opinion of us becomes a substitute for the broader opinion of the world. And that opinion becomes more important than all our sneaky, sleazy schemes of greed, lust, self-aggrandizement, whatever we are up to while lying the world into believing we are just plain nice folks.

See how he cowers and sneaks, how vaguely all the day he fears, not being immortal nor divine, but the slave and prisoner of his own opinion of himself, a fame won by his own deeds. Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.

Every possible opinion is authored about everything. What's going to eventually happen is someone will look back on this period and have to sift through it. The overwhelming majority of those opinions are going to be ignored, because if every opinion is being offered, really no opinion is being offered.

Who is so wise as to have a perfect knowledge of all things? Therefore trust not too much to thine own opinion, but be ready also to hear the opinion of others. Thought thine own opinion be good, yet if for the love of God thou foregoest it, and followest that of another, thou shalt the more profit thereby.

They learned to have a very high opinion of God and a very low opinion of His works—although they could tell you that this world had been made by God Himself. What they didn’t see was that it is beautiful, and that some of the greatest beauties are the briefest.

The being without an opinion is so painful to human nature that most people will leap to a hasty opinion rather than undergo it.

Our liberty depends on our education, our laws, and habits . . . it is founded on morals and religion, whose authority reigns in the heart, and on the influence all these produce on public opinion before that opinion governs rulers.

I doubt if these two fine, active minds [President and Mrs. Roosevelt] have ever inquiried how it is they know what they know and think as they do. Nor have they ever thought of what they might have been if they had grown up in an entirely different culture. They have the disposition of all politicians world over to deal only with made opinion. They have never inquired how it is that opinion is made.

I always remind myself that whenever I see a good review or hear a good opinion of a role that I've done that it's just an opinion, and therefore it's technically neither right nor wrong; it can't be. It's not a fact, it's not solid, it's not something you can bet the house on.

We live in a time where everybody has an opinion and everyone's opinion can be featured somewhere, whether it's an online column and everybody has their form because of the internet. I just find it really shitty that someone who never really produced anything, musically speaking, can just say, "I don't really like it." It just sucks because you put so much work into a record and someone disapproves.

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

As with the bud, so with the blossom. A boy is the only thing known from which a man can be made. I hope that we as parents are teaching our children that they are the sons and daughters of God, and that they have the capacity to become like him. It was the old Edinburgh weaver who prayed, 'O God, help me to hold a high opinion of myself.' Likewise I would counsel young people to hold a high opinion of themselves, to remember who they really are, and to put their faith in their Heavenly Father.

Sometimes, when people use too much blue screen in movies, the actors don't look credible, because they have their own opinion of what the thing will look like, and each person has a different opinion.

Because the task of a political leader is to do what he believes is better for his country. Sometimes the public opinion is in favor; sometimes the public opinion needs a little bit more time to understand things.

Wanting an honest opinion about my art from someone whose opinion I respect makes me feel vulnerable. It's a great space to be in.

I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world - no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.

They tell you to memorize your lines, follow your light, and hit your marks. Those are the three things that you shouldn't do. You should not learn your lines, you should not hit your mark, and you should never follow your light. Find your light - that's my opinion. Everyone else will tell me I'm wrong, but that's my opinion.

Whether we're talking about what the role of the government is, what you think of the United Nations, political leaders or how to respond to [Hurricane] Katrina and whether it had anything to do with race, across a wide variety of issues we see differences between mainstream black and white American opinion that dwarfs anything in American public opinion, period. Democrat versus Republican, men versus women, conservative versus liberal, the black/white divide is the biggest, one of the biggest in the world, and certainly the largest gap in the United States.

To really be known and really let someone else be known is very vulnerable. It's a weird thing. Just being an actress in Hollywood is very vulnerable. To let all these other people decide whether you're really of value or not, you have to really be strong to know that, of course, they have a right to their opinion, but their opinion doesn't matter as far as yourself.

But, as Bacon has well pointed out, truth is more likely to come out of error, if this is clear and definite, than out of confusion, and my experience teaches me that it is better to hold a well-understood and intelligible opinion, even if it should turn out to be wrong, than to be content with a muddle-headed mixture of conflicting views, sometimes miscalled impartiality, and often no better than no opinion at all.

We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.

Someone else's opinion of me- does not change my opinion of me.

[We are] no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and the duress of small groups of dominant men.

Every reform was once a private opinion, and when it shall be a private opinion again, it will solve the problem of the age.

Ask a scientist what he conceives the scientific method to be and he will adopt an expression that is at once solemn and shifty-eyed: solemn, because he feels he ought to declare an opinion; shifty-eyed, because he is wondering how to conceal the fact that he has no opinion to declare.

The opinion of the majority or the minority is of no importance! The important thing is the opinion of the Truth, of the Reason, of the Logic, of the High Intelligence!

People sometimes imagine that just because they have access to so many newspapers, radio and TV channels, they will get an infinity of different opinions. Then they discover that things are just the opposite: the power of these loudspeakers only amplifies the opinion prevalent at a certain time, to the point where it covers any other opinion.

When you control opinion, as corporate America controls opinion in the United States by owning the media, you can make the masses believe almost anything you want, and guide them as you please.

Public opinion is the last refuge of a politician without any opinion.

Sinatra, in my opinion, is possibly the greatest male singer of all time.

Everybody has their opinion and they are going to critique you.

James Franco has this interesting and relaxed look. It's pretty 'I don't care,' but it still looks good. Ryan Gosling also has amazing style. I take a lot of my fashion tips from those two. In my opinion, they're the ones getting it right.

I'm not angry. As an athlete ... you should be open to criticism, and you're allowed to be criticized, because not everybody has the same opinion, not everybody likes the same players. The rankings are quite volatile: Today you're 'great,' tomorrow you're 'not,' but then you're 'great' again. It makes for great stories. Now, I always look at the long term and by doing that, obviously, I can stay calm through the storm.

My opinion, young people go to the Internet. To the Internet distribution system right now, you put it up there and it's accessed by the world.

Evolutionism is a religious world view that is not supported by science, Scripture, popular opinion, or common sense. The exclusive teaching of this dangerous, mind-altering philosophy in tax supported schools, parks, museums, etc. is a clear violation of the First Amendment.

Where I would like to discover facts, I find fancy. Where I would like to learn what I did, I learn only what I was thinking. Theyare loaded with opinion, moral thoughts, quick evaluations, youthful hopes and cares and sorrows. Occasionally, they manage to report something in exquisite honesty and accuracy. That is why I have refrained from burning them.

This treaty [Kyoto] is, in our opinion, based upon flawed ideas. Research data on climate change do not show that human use of hydrocarbons is harmful. To the contrary, there is good evidence that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is environmentally helpful...agreement would have very negative effects upon the technology of nations throughout the world, especially those that are currently attempting to lift from poverty and provide opportunities to the over 4 billion people in technologically underdeveloped countries.

That's the one thing I say about the great British shows. You know, I see it on the series on HBO where the season is shortened to like 12 or 6 or whatever it is. You know there's a reason why there's a quality behind that. Because I think the writers as well as the crew and the cast do get burnt out after doing continuous episodes after and over and it feels like a factory rather than something of a creative process. And we get tapped out. That's just my opinion.

If a man wishes to ensure the bad opinion of others, his best course probably is to be honest about himself.

Caught up in life, you see it badly. You suffer from it or enjoy it too much. The artist, in my opinion, is a monstrosity, something outside of nature.

An autocratic system of coercion, in my opinion, soon degenerates. For force always attracts men of low morality, and I believe it to be an invariable rule that tyrants of genius are succeeded by scoundrels. For this reason I have always been passionately opposed to systems such as we see in Italy and Russia to-day.

As actors, it is our responsibility to read the newspapers, and then say what we read on television like it's our own opinion.

Using the word ‘political’ in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other peoples’ idea of the kind of society that they should strive after. Once again, no book is genuinely free from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.

There prevails among men of letters, an opinion, that all appearance of science is particularly hateful to Women; and that therefore whoever desires to be well received in female assemblies, must qualify himself by a total rejection of all that is serious, rational, or important; must consider argument or criticism as perpetually interdicted; and devote all his attention to trifles, and all his eloquence to compliment.

One may be my very good friend, and yet not of my opinion.

There is no reason to believe ... that the "essential purpose" of language is "communication". Language can be used to transmit information, but it also serves many other purposes: to establish relations among people, to express or clarify thought, for play, for creative mental activity, to gain understanding, and so on. In my opinion, there is no reason to accord privileged status to one or the other of these modes.