Topic

Opinion

La Bruyère notes that the exact contrary of what is generally believed is often the truth — perhaps the only proposition in this collection on which everyone would agree. Brandeis finds the promise of wisdom in the frank expression of conflicting opinions. Channing: the world is governed by opinion, not reality. Bierce defines the optimist. Hume: beauty exists in the mind that contemplates it, not in the object being contemplated. Stanhope's observation that both sexes are more often led by their hearts than their understandings is the most honest analysis of how opinions are actually formed. These quotes are for people who have noticed that opinion is a more volatile and consequential substance than it appears.

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Optimism: The doctrine or belief, that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, everything good, especially the bad, and everything right that is wrong

Source: The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Optimist: A proponent of the doctrine that black is white

Source: The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Cynic: A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be

Source: The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Immigrant: An unenlightened person who thinks one country better than another

Source: The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.

Source: An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, book 1 (1690)

Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of things.

Source: The Enchiridion, chapter 5 (1948)

Reputation is what others think of us; character is what God and the angels know of us

We are so vain that we even care for the opinion of those we don't care for

There is nothing so bad that someone won't praise it, or so good that someone won't complain

Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them

I regard golf as an expensive way of playing marbles

A little of what you call frippery is very necessary towards looking like the rest of the world

Men get opinions as boys learn to spell, by reiteration chiefly

Bigotry may be roughly defined as the anger of men who have no opinions

To do just the opposite is also a form of imitation

Do not mind anything that anyone tells you about anyone else. Judge everyone and everything for yourself.

To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else's type of thinking.

Let opinion be taken away, and no man will think himself wronged.

Source: Meditations, book 4 (1634 translation)

When it's a question of money, everybody is of the same religion

Every man has three characters - that which he exhibits, that which he has, and that which he thinks he has.