opinion

Thus you see, Sir, that these people are not so unpolished as we represent them.'Tis true, their magnificence is of a different taste from ours, and perhaps of a better. I am almost of opinion, they have a right notion of life. They consume it in music, gardens, wine, and delicate eating, while we are tormenting our brains with some scheme of politics, or studying some sciencetowhichwe canneverattain, or, if we do, cannot persuade other people to set that value upon it we do ourselves† We die or grow old before we can reap the fruit of our labours.Considering what short-lived weak animals men are, is there any study so beneficial as the study of present pleasure?

—Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley ne¤  e Pierrepoint

It were better to have no opinion of God at all than such an opinion as is unworthy of him.

—Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans

Busy opinion is an idle fool.

—Ford,John

A lawyer has no business with the justice or injustice of the cause which he undertakes, unless his client asks his opinion, and then he is bound to give it honestly. The justice or unjustice of the cause is to be decided by the judge. 444

—Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson

   The remarkable legion of the unremarked, whose individual opinions are not colorful or different enough to make news, but whose collective opinion, when crystallized, can make history.

—Safire,William

They, who would combat general authority with particular opinion, must first establish themselves a reputation of understanding better than other men.

—Dryden,John

The military struggle may frankly be regarded for what it actually was, namely a war for independence, an armed attempt to impose the views of the revolutionists on the British government and large sections of the colonial populationat whatevercosttofreedomofopinionor the sanctity of life and property.

—Schlesinger, Arthur Meier

Liberty, asit is conceived bycurrent opinion, hasnothing inherent about it; it is a sort of gift or trust bestowed on the individual by the state pending good behavior.

—McCarthy,Joseph R(aymond)

Do not despise my opinion, when I remind you that it should not be hard for you to stop sometimes and look into the stains of walls, or ashes of a fire, or clouds, or mud or like places, in which, if you consider them well, you may find really marvellous ideas.

—Leonardo daVinci

A journalist ishardlyanauthorityuponanythingöunless perhapsupontheappraisal of the drift of public opinion.

—Dafoe,JohnW

TheTimes is, we suppose, entitled to the character it gives of itself, of being the'leading journal of Europe', and is perhaps the greatest engine of temporary opinion in the world.

—Hazlitt,William

Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.

—Democritus

Le flatteur n'a pas assez bonne opinion de soi ni des autres. The flatterer does not have a good opinion of himself or of others.

—La Bruye'  re,Jean de

Es ist derVorzug und das Wesen der Starken, dass sie die groÞen Entscheidungsfragen stellen und zu ihnen klar Stellung nehmen k o« nnen. Die Schwachen mu«  ssen sich immer zwischen Alternativen entscheiden, die nicht die ihren sind. It is the nature, and the advantage, of strong people that they can bring out the crucial questions and form a clear opinion about them. The weak always have to decide between alternatives that are not their own.

—Bonhoeffer, Dietrich

And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn or two blades of grass to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country than the whole race of politicians put together.

—Swift,Jonathan

'Oldgirl,'said Mr Bagnet,'givehimmyopinion.You know it.'

—Dickens, CharlesJohn Huffam

   A baby is God's opinion that life should go on.

—Sandburg, Carl

If you are guided by opinion polls, you are not practising leadershipöyou are practising followship.

—Thatcher, Margaret HildaThatcher, Baroness

   It is the man of science, eager to have his every opinion regenerated, his every idea rationalized, by drinking at the fountain of fact, and devoting all the energies of his life to the cult of truth, not as he understands it, but as he does not yet understand it, that ought properly to be called a philosopher.

—Pierce, C(harles) S(aunders)

There was a heated division of opinion in the lobbies during the interval but a small conservative majority took the view that it might be as well to remain in the theatre.

—Tynan, Kenneth

Mr Podsnap was well to do, and stood very high in Mr Podsnap's opinion.

—Dickens, CharlesJohn Huffam

Polling is merely an instrument for gauging public opinion.When a president or any other leader pays attention to poll results, he is, in effect, paying attention to the views of the people. Any other interpretation is nonsense.

—Gallup, George Horace

He his fabric of the heavens Hath left to their disputes, perhaps to move His laughter at their quaint opinions wide Hereafter, when they come to model heaven And calculate the stars, how they will wield The mighty frame, how build, unbuild, contrive To save appearances, how gird the sphere With centric and eccentric scribbled o'er, Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb.

—Milton,John

As for conceit, what man will do any good who is not conceited? Nobody holds a good opinion of a man who has a low opinion of himself.

—Trollope, Anthony

If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would nomorebejustifiedinsilencingthatonepersonthanhe, if hehadthepower, would bejustified insilencing mankind.

—Mill,John Stuart

A constitutional statesman is in general a man of common opinion and uncommon abilities.

—Bagehot,Walter

The era of free speech is closing down. The freedom of the press in Britain was always something of a fake, because in the last resort, money controls opinion; still, so long asthe legal right tosay what you like exists, there are always loopholes for an unorthodox writer.

—Orwell, George pseudonym of  Eric Arthur Blair

My uncle was famous for his balanced point of view. At the time of which I am writing (when he was nearly seventy) it had become so balanced, that the act of balancing seemed rather automatic.One had only to offer him an opinion for him to balance it with a counter- opinion of exactly the same weight, as a grocer puts a pound weight against a pound of sugar.

—Spender, Sir Stephen Harold

He that complies against his will Is of his own opinion still.

—Butler, Samuel

I am always of the opinionwith the learned, if they speak first.

—Congreve,William

   Science is the father of knowledge, but opinion breeds ignorance.

—Hippocrates   c.460

Where there is much to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, muchwriting, manyopinions; foropinion in good men is but knowledge in the making.

—Milton,John

The superiority of one man's opinion over another's is never so great as when the opinion is about a woman.

—James, Henry

His opinion of himself, having once risen, remained at 'set fair'.

—Bennett, (Enoch) Arnold

Mariage est un e¤  tat de si longue dure¤  e qu'il ne doit e"  tre commence¤   le¤  ge'  rement, ni sans l'opinion de nos meilleurs amis et parents. Marriageisa state of such longdurationthat it should not begin lightly, nor without the opinion of our best friends and parents.

—Marguerite d'Angoule"  me

When I meet a historian who cannot think that there have been great men, great men moreover in politics, I feel myself in the presence of a bad historian; and there are times when I incline to judge all historians by their opinion of Winston Churchillöwhether they can see that, no matter how much better the details, often damaging, of man and career become known, he still remains, quite simply, a great man.

—Elton, Sir Geoffrey Rudolph

Newspapers necessarilyand inevitably reflect, and therefore, in greater or lesser measure, intensify, the defective organization of public opinion.

—Lippmann,Walter

Party is organized opinion.

—Disraeli, Benjamin, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield

Prejudice, n. Avagrant opinion without visible means of support.

—Bierce, Ambrose Gwinett

   We are a democracy, and there is only one way to get a democracy on its feet in the matter of its individual, its social, its municipal, its State, its National conduct, and that is by keeping the public informed about what is going on.There isnot a crime, there isnot a dodge, there is not a trick, there is not a swindle, there is not a vice which does not live by secrecy.Get these things out in the open, describe them, attack them, ridicule them in the press, and sooner or later public opinion will sweep them away.

—Pulitzer,Joseph

Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinion of others.

—Woolf, (Adeline) Virginia ne¤  e Stephen

To saya man is fallen in love,öor that he is deeply in love,öor up to the ears in love,öand sometimes even over head and ears in it,öcarries an idiomatical kind of implication, that love is a thing below a man:öthis is recurring again to Plato's opinion, which, with all his divinityship,öI hold to be damnable and heretical:öand so much for that. Let love therefore be what it will,ömy uncleToby fell into it.

—Sterne, Laurence

Are you at ease now? Is your heart at rest? Now you have got a shadow, an umbrella To keep the scorching world's opinion From your fair credit. 328

—Fo, Dario

I was ever of the opinion, that the honest man who married and brought up a large family, did more service than he who continued single and only talked of population.

—Goldsmith, Oliver

To us he is no more a person Now but a whole climate of opinion.

—Auden,W(ystan) H(ugh)

It takes in reality only one to make a quarrel. It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favour of vegetarianism, while the wolf remains of a different opinion.

—Inge,William Ralph