Quotes About Opinions

Happiness is promoted by associations of persons with similar tastes and similar opinions.

The habit of considering a man's religious, moral and political opinions before appointing him to a post or giving him a job is the modern form of persecution.

In studying a philosopher, the right attitude is neither reverence nor contempt, but first a kind of hypothetical sympathy, until it is possible to know what it feels like to believe in his theories, and only then a revival of the critical attitude, which should resemble, as far as possible, the state of mind of a person abandoning opinions which he has hitherto held.

Most men think that in framing their political opinions they are actuated by desire for the public good; but 9 times out of 10 a man's politics can be predicted from the way in which he makes a living. This has led some people to maintain, and many more to believe practically, that in such matters it is impossible to be objective, and that no method is possible except a tug-of-war between classes with opposite bias.

The fact is you cannot be intelligent merely by choosing your opinions. The intelligent man is not the man who holds such-and-such views but the man who has sound reasons for what he believes and yet does not believe it dogmatically. And opinions held for sound reasons have less emotional unity than the opinions of dogmatists because reason is non-party, favouring now one side and now another. That is what people find so unpleasant about it.

It is clear that the most elementary condition, if thought is to be free, is the absence of legal penalties for the expression of opinions. No great country has yet reached to this level, although most of them think they have.

It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions makes it impossible to earn a living. It is clear also that thought is not free if all the arguments on one side of a controversy are perpetually presented as attractively as possible, while the arguments on the other side can only be discovered by diligent search. Both these obstacles exist in every large country known to me, except China, which is the last refuge of freedom.

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.

The opinions which are still persecuted strike the majority as so monstrous and immoral that the general principle of toleration cannot be held to apply to them. But this is exactly the same view as that which made possible the tortures of the Inquisition.

In studying a philosopher, the right attitude is neither reverence nor contempt, but first a kind of hypothetical sympathy, until it is possible to know what it feels like to believe in his theories, and only then a revival of the critical attitude, which should resemble, as far as possible, the state of mind of a person abandoning opinions which he has hitherto held. Contempt interferes with the first part of this process, and reverence with the second.

I feel a real and solid pleasure when anybody points out a fallacy in any of my views, because I care much less about my opinions than about their being true.

Must think for thyself instead of merely taking scraps from different people - that is what makes thy opinions so disjointed, because thee takes different opinions from different people, thinking the two subjects independent - but no two subjects are really independent

There is a great danger in the tendency to suppose that opposition to authority is essentially meritorious and that unconventional opinions are bound to be correct: no useful purpose is served by smashing lamp-posts or maintaining Shakespeare to be no poet. Yet this excessive rebelliousness is often the effect that too much authority has on spirited pupils.

Usa-se a perseguição em teologia e não na aritmética, porque na aritmética há conhecimento, ao passo que na teologia só há opiniões. Portanto, sempre que der consigo a ficar zangado por causa de uma diferença de opinião, fique alerta: provavelmente descobrirá, pensando outra vez no assunto, que as suas crenças ultrapassam aquilo que a informação disponível permite afirmar.

Be very wary of opinions that flatter your self-esteem.

More erudite authors who advocate an irrationalist point of view, such as the pragmatist philosophers, are not to be caught out so easily. They maintain that there is no such thing as objective fact to which our opinions must conform if they are to be true. For them opinions are merely weapons in the struggle for existence, and those which help a man to survive are to be called "true.

I love it! You know, when I tour college campuses, I always find that the prettiest girls in the room are the ones in the College Republicans.

Some of the most controversial things I've said about President Trump, I've heard from Republicans. But it's just that I've heard them in the locker room. That's what people actually talk about in the locker room - how terrible our president is.

All people are born alike - except Republicans and Democrats.

I request the audience to not mix cinema with politics.

No one will stop to help you when you are in need, but everyone forces opinions upon you that you do not require.

I kind of resent the idea that the whole world has to be interested in the American elections.

My sense is that the majority of Conservatives share my reservations about how we got into Iraq.

Being English, we're polite and reserved, we don't express our opinions; we're very private people.