This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"The states of virtue by which the soul possesses truth by way of affirmation or denial are five in number, i.e., art, scientific knowledge, practical wisdom, philosophical wisdom, intuitive wisdom: we do not included judgment and opinion because in these we may be mistaken." - Aristotle NULL
"Those who desire honor from good men, and men who know, are aiming at confirming their own opinion of themselves; they delight in honor, therefore, because they believe in their own goodness on the strength of the judgment of those who speak about them." - Aristotle NULL
"If you want to discover your true opinion of anybody, observe the impression made on you by the first sight of a letter from him." - Arthur Schopenhauer
"Without data, all you are is another person with an opinion." - Author Unknown NULL
"The two chief things that give a man reputation in counsel, are the opinion of his honesty, and the opinion of his wisdom; the authority of those two will persuade." - Ben Jonson
"A man’s fate is his own temper; and according to that will be his opinion as to the particular manner in which the course of events is regulated. A consistent man believes in destiny, an capricious man in chance." - Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield
"The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible." - Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
"The fact that the majority of a community dislikes an opinion gives it no right to interfere with those who hold it. And the fact that the majority of a community wishes not to know certain facts gives it no right to imprison those who wish to know them." - Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
"One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny." - Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
"There is… no point in deliberately flouting public opinion; this is still to be under its domination, though in a topsy-turvy way. But to be genuinely indifferent to it is both a strength and a source of happiness." - Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
"The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence that it is not utterly absurd; indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible." - Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
"Force rules the world - not opinion; but opinion which makes use of force." - Blaise Pascal
"The majority is the best way, because it is visible and has strength to make itself obeyed. Yet it is the opinion of the least able." - Blaise Pascal
"The majority is the best way, because it is visible, and has strength to make itself obeyed. Yet it is the opinion of the least able." - Blaise Pascal
"Obstinacy and vehemency in opinion are the surest proofs of stupidity." - Bruce Barton
"A baby is God’s opinion that the world should go on." - Carl Sandburg
"Honor is unstable, and seldom the same; for she feeds upon opinion, and is as fickle as her food. She builds a lofty structure on the sandy foundation of the esteem of those who of all beings the most subject to change." - Charles Caleb Colton
"It has been shrewdly said that when men abuse us, we should suspect ourselves, and when they praise us, them. It is a rare instance of virtue to despise censure which we do not deserve, and still more rare to despise praise, which we do. But that integrity that lives only on opinion would starve without it." - Charles Caleb Colton
"Physical courage which despises all danger, will make a man brave in one way; and moral courage, which despises all opinion, will make a man brave in another. The former would seem most necessary for the camp; the latter for the council; but to constitute a great man both are necessary." - Charles Caleb Colton
"The intoxication of anger, like that of the grape, shows us to others, but hides us from ourselves. We injure our own cause in the opinion of the world when we too passionately defend it." - Charles Caleb Colton
"When in the company of sensible men, we ought to be doubly cautious of talking too much, lest we lose two good things - their good opinion and our own improvement; for what we have to say we know, but what to say we know not." - Charles Caleb Colton
"My opinion is that you never find happiness until you stop looking for it." - Chuang Tzu, also spelled Chuang-tsze, Chuang Chou, Zhuangzi, Zhuang Tze, Zhuang Zhou, Chuang Tsu, Chouang-Dsi, Chuang Tse, or Chuangtze
"One of the surest ways of making a friend and influencing the opinion of another is to give consideration to his opinion, to let him sustain his feeling of importance." - 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 spiral nebulae swarming through illimitable space above, they will continue for thousand of millions of years. I marvel that any man looking up at the stars can have an exaggerated opinion of his own importance." - Dale Carnegie, originally spelled Dale Carnegey
"The notion that one opinion is as good as another will not work in any other area of human experience, why should it work in the area of faith?" - Elton Trueblood, fully David Elton Trueblood
"Opinion says hot and cold, but the reality is atoms and empty space." - Democritus NULL
"We think very few people sensible except those who are of our opinion." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt
"Fundamentally, public opinion wins wars." - Dwight Eisenhower, fully Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower
"Laws that do not embody public opinion can never be enforced." - Elbert Green Hubbard
"Of all the illusions that beset mankind none is quite so curious as [the] tendency to suppose that we are mentally and morally superior to those who differ from us in opinion." - Elbert Green Hubbard
"The two powers which in my opinion constitute a wise man are those of bearing and forbearing." - Epictetus "the Stoic" NULL
"Men are disturbed not by events which happen, but by the opinion they have of these events. Thus death is nothing terrible… but the opinion we have about death is that it is terrible, this is the terrifying thing." - Epictetus "the Stoic" NULL
"The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role in mass-movement leadership. What counts is the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of the opinion of others, the single-handed defiance of the world." - Eric Hoffer
"It were better to have no opinion of God at all, than such an opinion as is unworthy of Him; for the one is unbelief, the other is contumely: and certainly superstition is the reproach of the Deity." - Francis Bacon
"Every one is full of his own opinion." - François Rabelais
"Patriotism is often understood to mean only a readiness for exceptional sacrifices and actions. Essentially, however, it is the sentiment which, in the relationships of our daily life and under ordinary conditions, habitually recognizes that the community is one’s substantive groundwork and end. It is out of this consciousness, which during life’s daily round stands the test in all circumstances, that there subsequently also arises the readiness for extraordinary exertions. But since men would often rather be magnanimous than law-abiding, they readily persuade themselves that they possess this exceptional patriotism in order to be sparing in the expression of a genuine patriotic sentiment or to excuse their lack of it. If again this genuine patriotism is looked upon as that which may begin of itself and arise from subjective ideas and thoughts, it is being confused with opinion, because so regarded patriotism is deprived of its true ground, objective reality." - Georg Hegel, fully Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
"Thus to be independent of public opinion is the first formal condition of achieving anything great or rational whether in life or in science." - Georg Hegel, fully Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
"What is the true content of art, and with what aim is this content to be presented? On this subject our consciousness supplies us with the common opinion that it is the task and ima of art to bring in contact with our sense, our feeling, our inspiration, all that finds a place in the mind of man... Its aim is therefore placed in arousing and animating the slumbering emotions, inclinations, and passions; in filling the heart, in forcing the human being, whether cultured or uncultured, to feel the whole range of what man’s soul in its inmost and secret corners has power to experience and to create, and all that is able to move and to stir the human breast in its depths and in its manifold aspects and possibilities; to present as a delight to emotion and to perception all that the mind possesses of real and lofty in its thought and in the Idea - all the splendor of the noble, the eternal, and the true; and no less to make intelligible misfortune and misery, wickedness and crime; to make men realize the inmost nature of all that is shocking and horrible, as also of all pleasure and delight; and, finally, to set imagination roving in idle toyings of fancy, and luxuriating in the seductive spells of sense-stimulating visions." - Georg Hegel, fully Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
"Patriotism, public opinion, parental duty, discipline, religion, morality, are only fine names for intimidation." - George Bernard Shaw
"This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, being a true force of Nature instead of a feverish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, an, as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can." - George Bernard Shaw
"It is necessary to distinguish consciousness from the possibility of consciousness. We have only the possibility of consciousness and rare flashes of it. Therefore we cannot define what consciousness is. For most people, the chief obstacle in the way of acquiring self-consciousness consists in the fact that they think they possess it. It is evident that a man will not be interested if you tell him that he can acquire by long and difficult work something which, in his opinion, he already has." - George Gurdjieff, fully George Ivanovich Gurdjieff
"Truth is a very different thing from fact; it is the loving contact of the soul with spiritual fact, vital and potent. It does not work I the soul independently of all faculty or qualification there for setting it forth or defending it. Truth in the inward parts is a power, not an opinion." - George MacDonald
"Leaders are responsible not for running public opinion polls but for the consequences of their action." - Henry Kissinger, fully Henry Alfred Kissinger
"Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that is what determines, or rather, indicates, his fate." - Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
"A man's character is the reality of himself. His reputation is the opinion others have formed of him. Character is in him; reputation is from other people - that is the substance, this is the shadow." - Henry Ward Beecher
"It is impossible to indulge in habitual severity of opinion upon our fellow-men without injuring the tenderness and delicacy of our own feelings." - Henry Ward Beecher
"Private opinion is weak, but public opinion is almost omnipotent." - Henry Ward Beecher
"Opinion is ultimately determined by the feelings and not by the intellect." - Herbert Spencer