"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."

"Opinions derived from long experience are exceedingly valuable."

"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."

"Eigene Meinungen. - Die erste Meinung, welche uns einfällt, wenn wir plötzlich über eine Sache befragt werden, ist gewöhnlich nicht unsere eigene, sondern nur die landläufige, unserer Kaste, Stellung, Abkunft zugehörige; die eigenen Meinungen schwimmen selten oben auf."

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

"He that complies against his will Is of his own opinion still."

"Es ist nicht der Kampf der Meinungen, welcher die Geschichte so gewaltthätig gemacht hat, sondern der Kampf des Glaubens an die Meinungen, das heisst der Ueberzeugungen."

"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."

"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."

"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts."

"There are as many opinions as there are experts."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

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

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

"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."

"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."

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

"I have bought Golden opinions from all sorts of people, Which would be worn now in their newest gloss, Not cast aside so soon."

"Facts are stubborn things."

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

"Men who borrow their opinions can never repay their debts."

""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."

"La force est la reine du monde, et non pas l'opinion; mais l'opinion est celle qui use de la force."

"Il opine du bonnet comme un moine en Sorbonne."

"Della opinione regina del mondo."

"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."]"

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

"Quot homines, tot sententiæ; suus cuique mos."

"How long halt ye between two opinions?"

"Dogmatism is puppyism come to its full growth."

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

"Denique non omnes eadem mirantur amantque."

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

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

"The deep slumber of a decided opinion."

"Stiff in opinion, always in the wrong."

"Omni autem in re consensio omnium gentium lex naturæ putanda est."

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

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

"Intolerant only of intolerance."

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

"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."

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

"Everyone's got an opinion, and they just talk and talk and nothing gets decided."

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