Quotes About Opinions

The minute you get engaged, you become public property.

The monute you get engaged, you become public property.

If everyone in New York took sides over these petty, insignificant arguments, no one would have any friends at all.

Scientists make mistakes. Accordingly, it is the job of the scientist to recognize our weakness, to examine the widest range of opinions, to be ruthlessly self-critical. Science is a collective enterprise with the error-correction machinery often running smoothly.

Most of us are for freedom of expression when there's a danger that our own views will be suppressed. We're not all that upset, though, when views we despise encounter a little censorship here and there.

Both science and democracy encourage unconventional opinions and vigorous debate. Both demand adequate reason, coherent argument, rigorous standards of evidence and honesty. Science is a way to call the bluff of those who only pretend to knowledge. It is a bulwark against mysticism, against superstition, against religion misapplied to where it has no business being.

Trends working at least marginally towards the implantation of a very narrow range of attitudes, memories, and opinions include control of major television networks and newspapers by a small number of similarly motivated powerful corporation and individuals, the disappearance of competitive daily newspapers in many cities, the replacement of substantive debate by sleaze in political campaigns, and episodic erosion of the principal of the separation of powers.

Things are pretty strange in this world and people do it many ways and you are just an atom in a galaxy of possibilities and your opinions and your science and 'What I think' and all that, is just so much noise in a very complex and busy world. And its that same humbling perception that comes out of psychedelics. It just shows you, you're very parochial.

You know, Annie," he said then, his deep voice thoughtful, "fighting didn't change his opinion. The opinions of others, whether you agree with them or not, are something you have to learn to tolerate.

La cosa importante non era ciò che la gente pensava di me; era ciò che io pensavo di me stesso. Se permettevo a me stesso di essere fermato dalle opinioni degli altri, sarei diventato ciò che essi desideravano che io diventassi.

The liberal state has no view on whether witchcraft is more valuable than all-in wrestling. Like a tactful publican, it has as few opinions as possible. Many liberals suspect passionate convictions are latently authoritarian. But liberalism should surely be a passionate conviction. Liberals are not necessarily lukewarm. Only the more macho leftist suspects that they have no balls. You can be ardently neutral, and fiercely indifferent.

You don't bring about major political change simply by changing people's minds. It's their interests that need to be assailed, not their opinions.

What is one to make of the tirades of those who appear to know little of politics beyond their own invaluable right to publish their stuff and say what they think?

You can enjoy books you do not admire and admire books you do not enjoy.

I used to lie on his bed for an hour before bedtime or on a Saturday afternoon and read to him and then when he graduated to books with chapters sometimes he read. I'd look over at him, at his entire body, which appeared to have grown in the last few minutes; his lips moved and his eyes danced and darted across the page and I'd think: my son can read; he can comprehend things, he is making discoveries and he will soon have even more opinions about the world.

The problem with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and putting things in it.

Soon to come in licorice, orange, cinnamon, and banana, but not strawberry, because I hate strawberries.

I've never really liked the Yanks. ... You can't trust people who pick up the ball all the time when they play football.

Insofar as he'd formed any opinion of her, it was that she suffered from misplaced gentility and the mistaken belief that etiquette meant good breeding. She mistook mannerisms for manners.

You had to stop discussing politics or you would run right into it, causing no damage to anything but yourself.

They criticize the silent ones. They criticize the talkative ones. They criticize the moderate ones. There is no one in the world who escapes criticism.

I also hold a settling of questions by the referendum to be an unsatisfactory procedure, because there are no simple political questions which can be answered merely by Yes and No. The masses are also more prone even than Parliaments to be led away by heterodox opinions, and to be swayed by vigorous ranting. It is impossible to formulate a wise internal or external policy in a popular assembly.

No me gustan los intelectuales hombres de las letras con sus conversaciones sobrecargadas de citas.

Hay dos clases de nudos. El primero es el de nuestras opiniones e ideas, nuestros conceptos y conocimientos. Todo el mundo tiene opiniones e ideas, pero cuando nos apegamos a ellas, dejamos de ser libres y no podemos ver la verdad en la vida. La segunda clase de nudo es el de nuestras aflicciones y hábitos de sufrimiento, como el miedo, la ira, la discriminación, la desesperación y la arrogancia. Para ser libres tenemos que deshacer esos nudos.