This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Ted Sorensen, fully Theodore Chalkin "Ted" Sorensen
Public opinion rarely considers the needs of the next generation or the history of the last. It is frequently hampered by myths and misinformation, by stereotypes and shibboleths, and by an innate resistance to innovation.
History | Innovation | Opinion | Public |
Happiness generally depends more on the opinion we have of Things, than on the Things themselves.
Opinion |
Public opinion is a second conscience.
Conscience | Opinion | Public |
The secret of our self-love is just the same as that of our liberality and candor. Wee prefer ourselves to others only because we have a more intimate consciousness and confirmed opinion of our own claims and merits than of any other person’s.
Candor | Consciousness | Love | Opinion | Self | Self-love |
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
What we seek is the reign of law, based upon the consent of the governed and sustained by the organized opinion of mankind.
Silence is one great art of conversation. He is not a fool who knows when to hold his tongue; and a person may gain credit for sense, eloquence, wit, who merely says nothing to lessen the opinion which others have of these qualities in themselves.
Art | Conversation | Credit | Nothing | Opinion | Qualities | Sense | Silence | Wit | Art |
People do not seem to talk for the sake of expressing their opinions, but to maintain an opinion for the sake of talking.
Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL
The history of human opinion is scarcely anything more than the history of human errors[crimes].
Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL
Prejudice is opinion without judgment.
Public opinion is the atmosphere of society, without which the forces of the individual would collapse, and all the institutions of society fly into atoms.
Individual | Opinion | Public | Society | Society |
Truth is one forever absolute, but opinion is truth filtered through the moods, the blood, the disposition of the spectator.
Every man, in judging of himself, is his own contemporary. He may feel the gale of popularity, but he cannot tell how long it will last. His opinion of himself wants distance, wants time, wants numbers, to set it off and confirm it.
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
The fundamental argument for freedom of opinion is the doubtfulness of all our beliefs. If we certainly knew the truth, there would be something to be said for teaching it. But in that case it could be taught without invoking authority, by means of its inherent reasonableness.
Dale Carnegie, originally spelled Dale Carnegey
When I look at the stars and realize that the light from some of these suns takes a million years to reach my eyes, I realize how tiny and insignificant this earth is, and how microscopic and evanescent are my own little troubles. I will pass on soon; but the sea stretching for a thousand miles in all directions and the stars and the spiral nebulae swarming through illimitable space above, they will continue for millions of years. I marvel that any man looking up at the stars can have an exaggerated opinion of his own importance.
Earth | Light | Little | Man | Opinion | Space | Troubles | Will |
Marquis de Sade, born Donatien Alphonse François de Sade
Prejudice is the sole author of infamies: how many acts are so qualified by an opinion forged out of naught but prejudice!
Marquis de Sade, born Donatien Alphonse François de Sade
So long as the laws remain such as they are today, employ some discretion: loud opinion forces us to do so; but in privacy and silence let us compensate ourselves for that cruel chastity we are obliged to display in public.
Chastity | Discretion | Display | Opinion | Public | Silence |