Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quote Share via Email Print this Page [1-20] of 21 Opinion quotesOpinion QuotesOpinion Next 20 quotes The opinion of ten thousand men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject.~ Marcus Aurelius The freedom allowed in the United States to all sorts of inquiry and discussion necessarily leads to a diversity of opinion, which is seen not only in there being different denominations, but different opinions also in the same denomination.~ Robert Baird The power of the executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charges known to the law, and particularly to deny him judgment by his peers for an indefinite period, is in the highest degree odious, and is the foundation of all totalitarian governments...Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilisation.~ Winston Churchill Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions that differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.~ Albert Einstein The persecuting spirit has its origin morally in the disposition of man to domineer over his fellow creatures; intellectually, in the assumption that one's own opinions are infallibly correct.~ John Fiske All the martyrs in the history of the world are not sufficient to establish the correctness of an opinion. Martyrdom, as a rule, establishes the sincerity of the martyr, — never the correctness of his thought. Things are true or false in themselves. Truth cannot be affected by opinions; it cannot be changed, established, or affected by martyrdom. An error cannot be believed sincerely enough to make it a truth. ~ Robert G. Ingersoll It has been a source of great pain to me to have met with so many among [my] opponents who had not the liberality to distinguish between political and social opposition; who transferred at once to the person, the hatred they bore to his political opinions.~ Thomas Jefferson I practice journalism in accordance with the following guidelines: • Do nothing I cannot defend. • Do not distort, lie, slant or hype. • Do not falsify facts or make up quotes. • Cover, write and present every story with the care I would want if the story were about me. • Assume there is at least one other side or version to every story. • Assume the viewer is as smart and caring and good a person as I am. • Assume the same about all people on whom I report. • Assume everyone is innocent until proven guilty. • Assume personal lives are a private matter until a legitimate turn in the story mandates otherwise. • Carefully separate opinion and analysis from straight news stories and clearly label it as such. • Do not use anonymous sources or blind quotes except on rare and monumental occasions. No one should ever be allowed to attack another anonymously. • Do not broadcast profanity or the end result of violence unless it is an integral and necessary part of the story and/or crucial to its understanding. • Acknowledge that objectivity may be impossible but fairness never is. • Journalists who are reckless with facts and reputations should be disciplined by their employers. • My viewers have a right to know what principles guide my work and the process I use in their practice. • I am not in the entertainment business. ~ Jim Lehrer One cannot wage war under present conditions without the support of public opinion, which is tremendously molded by the press and other forms of propaganda.~ General Douglas MacArthur With regard to Banks, they have taken too deep and too wide a root in social transactions, to be got rid of altogether, if that were desirable. They have a hold on public opinion, which alone would make it expedient to aim rather at the improvement, than the suppression of them. As now generally constituted, their advantages whatever they be, are outweighed by the excesses of their paper emissions, and the partialities and corruption with which they are administered.~ James Madison It is the trivial, the irrelevant, the sensational, the appeal to obsolete bigotry which naturally give it greatest publicity. In such publicity it becomes a mere vulgar caricature of itself.~ Everett Dean Martin The educator aims at a slow process of development; the propagandist, at quick results. The educator tries to tell people how to think; the propagandist, what to think. The educator strives to develop individual responsibility; the propagandist, mass effects. The educator wants thinking; the propagandist, action. The educator fails unless he achieves an open mind; the propagandist, unless he achieves a closed mind.~ Everett Dean Martin One of the serious results of propaganda is that it has caused the public to think that education and propaganda are the same thing, and thus to make an ignorant multitude believe it is being educated when it is only being manipulated. Education aims at independence of judgement. Propaganda offers ready-made opinions for the unthinking herd.~ Everett Dean Martin A human group transforms itself into a crowd when it suddenly responds to a suggestion rather than to reasoning, to an image rather than to an idea, to an affirmation rather than to proof, to the repetition of a phrase rather than to arguments, to prestige rather than to competence.~ Jean-Francois Revel Dogma demands authority, rather than intelligent thought, as the source of opinion; it requires persecution of heretics and hostility to unbelievers; it asks of its disciples that they should inhibit natural kindness in favour of systematic hatred.~ Bertrand Russell We may define a Puritan as a man who holds that certain kinds of acts, even if they have no visible bad effects upon others than the agent, are inherently sinful, and, being sinful, ought to be prevented by whatever means is most effectual - the criminal law if possible, and, if not that, then public opinion backed by economic pressure.~ Bertrand Russell Just as we suffer from excess in all things, so we suffer from excess in literature; thus we learn our lessons, not for life, but for the lecture room.~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don't like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don't expect freedom to survive very long.~ Thomas Sowell The truth is, that, even with the most secure tenure of office, during good behavior, the danger is not, that the judges will be too firm in resisting public opinion, and in defence of private rights or public liberties; but, that they will be ready to yield themselves to the passions, and politics, and prejudices of the day.~ Joseph Story Conscience is, in most, an anticipation of the opinion of others.~ Henry Taylor Next 20 quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print