Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Related Quotes

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

When a law is proposed in the people’s assembly, what is asked of them is not precisely whether they approve of the proposition or reject it, but whether it is in conforming with the general will which is theirs; each by giving his vote gives his opinion on this question, and the counting of votes yields a declaration of the general will. When, therefore, the opinion contrary to my own prevails, this proves only that I have made a mistake, and that what I believed to be the general will was not so. If my particular opinion had prevailed against the general will, I should have done something other than what I had willed, and then I should not have been free. This presupposes, it is true, that all characteristics of the general will are still to be found in the majority; when these cease to be there, no matter what position men adopt, there is no longer any freedom.

Character | Freedom | Giving | Law | Majority | Men | Mistake | Opinion | People | Position | Question | Will |

Johann Gottfried Seume

Idleness is the stupidity of the body, and stupidity is the idleness of the mind.

Body | Character | Idleness | Mind | Stupidity |

Madame de Sévigné, Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné

Nothing is more certain of destroying any good feeling that may be cherished towards us than to show distrust. To be suspected as an enemy is often enough to make a man become so; the whole matter is over, there is no farther use of guarding against it. On the contrary, confidence leads us naturally to act kindly, we are affected by the good opinion which others entertain of us, and we are not easily induced to lose it.

Character | Confidence | Distrust | Enemy | Enough | Good | Man | Nothing | Opinion |

George Savile, fully Sir George Savile, 1st Marquis of Halifax

They who are of the opinion that Money will do everything, may; very well be suspected to do everything for Money.

Character | Money | Opinion | Will |

John Selden

Idolatry is in a man's own thought, not in the opinion of another.

Character | Man | Opinion | Thought |

J. L. Schnadig

Don't judge a man by his opinion of himself.

Character | Man | Opinion |

Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

I often marvel how it is that though each man loves himself beyond all else, he should yet value his own opinion of himself less than that of others.

Man | Opinion | Wisdom | Value |

W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden

Between friends differences in taste or opinion are irritating in direct proportion to their triviality.

Opinion | Taste | Wisdom | Friends |

Brooks Atkinson, fully Justin Brooks Atkinson

We tolerate differences of opinion in people who are familiar to us. But differences of opinion in people we do not know sounds like heresy or plots.

Opinion | People | Wisdom |

Ralph Venning

To maintain an opinion because it is thine, and not because it is true, is to prefer thyself above the truth.

Character | Opinion | Truth |

Alfred Austin

Public opinion is no more than this. What people think that other people think.

Opinion | People | Public | Wisdom | Think |

George Bancroft

The best government rests on the people, and not on the few, on persons and not on property, on the free development of public opinion and not on authority.

Authority | Government | Opinion | People | Property | Public | Wisdom | Government |

Cesare, Marquis of Beccaria-Bonesana

The ambitious man grasps at opinion as necessary to his designs; the vain man sure for it as a testimony to his merit; the honest man demands it as his due; and most men consider it as necessary to their existence.

Existence | Man | Men | Merit | Opinion | Wisdom |

Jean de La Bruyère

There are only two ways of getting on in the world: by one's own industry, or by the stupidity of others.

Industry | Stupidity | Wisdom | World |

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton

Vanity, indeed, is the very antidote to conceit; for while the former makes us all nerve to the opinions of others, the latter is perfectly satisfied with its opinion of itself.

Opinion | Wisdom |

Frank Gelett Burgess

If in the last few years you hadn't discarded a major opinion or acquired a new one, check your pulse. You may be dead.

Opinion | Wisdom |