This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Doris Kearns Goodwin, born Doris Helen Kearns
That is what leadership is all about: staking your ground ahead of where opinion is and convincing people, not simply following the popular opinion of the moment.
Opinion | People | Following | Leadership |
It is not he who reviles or strikes you who insults you, but your opinion that these things are insulting.
Opinion |
Prejudice and passion and suspicion are more dangerous than the incitement of self-interest or the most stubborn adherence to real differences of opinion regarding rights.
Opinion | Passion | Self-interest | Suspicion |
The opinion which other people have of you is their problem, not yours
No man is disturbed by things, but by his opinion about things.
William Enfield, aka "The Enquirer"
The system of morality which Socrates made it the business of his life to teach was raised upon the firm basis of religion. The first principles of virtuous conduct which are common to all mankind are, according to this excellent moralist, laws of God; and the conclusive argument by which he supports this opinion is, that no man departs from these principles with impunity.
Argument | Business | Conduct | Life | Life | Man | Mankind | Morality | Opinion | Principles | System | Teach | Business |
Erich Fromm, fully Erich Seligmann Fromm
At least two requirements are involved in the formation of a genuine conviction: adequate information and the knowledge that one's decision has an effect. Opinions formed by the powerless onlooker do not express his or her conviction, but are a game, analogous to expressing a preference for one brand of cigarette over another. For these reasons the opinions expressed in polls and in elections constitute the worst, rather than the best, level of human judgment...Without information, deliberation, and the power to make one's decision effective, democratically expressed opinion is hardly more than the applause at a sports event.
Applause | Decision | Knowledge | Opinion | Power | Preference |
Erwin Schrödinger, fully Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger
You may ask — you are bound to ask me now: What, then, is in your opinion the value of natural science? I answer: Its scope, aim and value is the same as that of any other branch of human knowledge. Nay, none of them alone, only the union of all of them, has any scope or value at all, and that is simply enough described: it is to obey the command of the Delphic deity: gnothi seauton... get to know yourself!
I cannot understand the importance which certain people set upon outward beauty or plainness. I am of opinion that all true education, such at least as has a religious foundation, must infuse a noble calm, a wholesome coldness, an indifference, or whatever people may call it, towards such-like outward gifts, or the want of them. And who has not experienced of how little consequence they are in fact for the weal or woe of life? Who has not experienced, how, on nearer acquaintance, plainness becomes beautified, and beauty loses its charm, exactly according to the quality of the heart and mind? And from this cause am I of opinion that the want of outward beauty never disquiets a noble nature or will be regarded as a misfortune. It never can prevent people from being amiable and beloved in the highest degree; and we have daily proof of this.
Beauty | Cause | Heart | Little | Nature | Opinion | People | Will | Woe | Beauty | Understand |
The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects, in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate.
Authority | Distinction | Opinion | Order | Understanding |
It often takes more courage to change one's opinion than to stick to it.
Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
The falseness of an opinion is not for us any objection to it. The question is how far it is life-furthering, life-preserving, species-preserving.
Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
One often contradicts an opinion when it is really only the tone in which it has been presented that is unsympathetic.
Opinion |
George Marshall, fully George Catlett Marshall, Jr.
We must present democracy as a force holding within itself the seeds of unlimited progress by the human race. By our actions we should make it clear that such a democracy is a means to a better way of life, together with a better understanding among nations. Tyranny inevitably must retire before the tremendous moral strength of the gospel of freedom and self-respect for the individual, but we have to recognize that these democratic principles do not flourish on empty stomachs, and that people turn to false promises of dictators because they are hopeless and anything promises something better than the miserable existence that they endure. However, material assistance alone is not sufficient. The most important thing for the world today in my opinion is a spiritual regeneration which would reestablish a feeling of good faith among men generally. Discouraged people are in sore need of the inspiration of great principles. Such leadership can be the rallying point against intolerance, against distrust, against that fatal insecurity that leads to war. It is to be hoped that the democratic nations can provide the necessary leadership.
Better | Democracy | Existence | Faith | Force | Freedom | Good | Important | Insecurity | Inspiration | Means | Men | Nations | Need | Opinion | People | Present | Principles | Progress | Strength | Tyranny | Understanding | World | Leadership |
George Orwell, pen name of Eric Arthur Blair
What opinions the masses hold, or do not hold, is looked on as a matter of indifference. They can be granted intellectual liberty because they have no intellect. In a Party member, on the other hand, not even the smallest deviation of opinion on the most unimportant subject can be tolerated.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
The press is seldom intelligent, save in the arts of the mob-master. It is never courageously honest. Held harshly to a rigid correctness of opinion by the plutocracy that controls it with less and less attempt to disguise, and menaced on all sides by censorships that dare not flout, it sinks rapidly into formalism and feebleness. Its yellow section is perhaps its most respectable section for there the only vestige of the old free journalism survives.
Correctness | Opinion | Old |
Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson
If a man consults whether he is to fight, when he has the power in his own hands, it is certain that his opinion is against fighting.