67 Quotes On Opinions And Perspectives

In a world bustling with a myriad of voices and viewpoints, opinions shape the fabric of our everyday conversations and interactions. They guide our decisions, reflect our beliefs, and fuel our discussions. Perspectives, however, offer the lens through which these opinions are formed, providing depth and context to our understanding of the world around us. In this curated collection, we explore 67 powerful quotes that encapsulate the essence of opinions and perspectives. These quotes serve as thought-provoking reminders of the diversity of thought and the beauty that comes from embracing different worldviews. Whether you’re seeking inspiration, reflection, or just a moment of introspection, these quotes offer valuable insights into the art of understanding and appreciating the diverse tapestry of human thought. Dive in, and let these wise words challenge and enrich your perspective.

1. “The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.” - William Blake

2. “Each voice carries a portion of value, no matter how unpalatable or distasteful that voice may be: no one person, government, ideology, transnational, or religious institution can own and dominate the whole.” - B. W. Powe

3. “Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they love truth.” - Joseph Joubert

4. “You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.” - Harlan Ellison

5. “My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I'm right.” - Ashleigh Brilliant

6. “I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat, or a prostitute.” - Rebecca West

7. “If God were our one and only desire we would not be so easily upset when our opinions do not find outside acceptance.” - Thomas A. Kempis

8. “Do not have an opinion while you listen because frankly, your opinion doesn't hold much water outside of Your Universe. Just listen. Listen until their brain has been twisted like a dripping towel and what they have to say is all over the floor.” - Hugh Elliott

9. “Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

10. “If someone isn't what others want them to be, the others become angry. Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.” - Paulo Coelho

11. “I have opinions of my own - strong opinions - but I don't always agree with them.” - George H.W. Bush

12. “There are a great many opinions in this world, and a good half of them are professed by people who have never been in trouble."(The Mill)” - Anton Chekhov

13. “Nothing is more conductive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all.” - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

14. “When you develop your opinions on the basis of weak evidence, you will have difficulty interpreting subsequent information that contradicts these opinions, even if this new information is obviously more accurate.” - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

15. “People will always have opinions about your decision because they're not courageous enough to take action on their opinion.” - Steve Maraboli

16. “People can tell you to keep your mouth shut, but that doesn't stop you from having your own opinion.” - Anne Frank

17. “I also learned that a person was not necessarily bad just because you did not agree with him, and that if you believed in something, you had better be prepared to defend it.” - Hillary Clinton

18. “The circumstances of the world are so variable that an irrevocable purpose or opinion is almost synonymous with a foolish one.” - William Seward

19. “It seemed to me an odd view to take - rather as if one should protest that one didn't LIKE the idea of dying or being born. I preferred the notion of finding out first how it would be, and then doing what one could about the parts of it one disliked most.” - John Wyndham

20. “We naturally like what we have been accustomed to, and are attracted towards it. [...] The same is the case with those opinions of man to which he has been accustomed from his youth; he likes them, defends them, and shuns the opposite views.” - Maimonides

21. “We judge others instantly by their clothes, their cars, their appearance, their race, their education, their social status. The list is endless. What gets me is that most people decide who another person is before they have even spoken to them. What's even worse is that these same people decide who someone else is, and don't even know who they are themselves.” - Ashly Lorenzana

22. “Even the financial disclosure statements that political bloggers were required to post hadn't stemmed the suspicion that people's opinions weren't really their own. "Who's paying you?" was a retort that might follow any bout of enthusiasm, along with laughter - who would let themselves be bought?” - Jennifer Egan

23. “Washington once advised his adopted grandson that where there is no occasion for expressing an opinion, it is best to be silent. For there is nothing more certain than that it is at all times more easy to make enemies than friends.” - Ron Chernow

24. “Beware: open-mindedness will often say, 'Everything is permissible except a sharp opinion.” - Criss Jami

25. “If you have to say or do something controversial, aim so that people will hate that they love it and not love that they hate it.” - Criss Jami

26. “Faithfulness imparts God's reason for all circumstances. No matter what the world says, losing is no longer an option.” - Criss Jami

27. “Everyone has a sense of humor. If you don't laugh at jokes, you probably laugh at opinions.” - Criss Jami

28. “In a general sense, I admit to valuing the worldviews of men under the age of 40 and women over the age of 30.” - Criss Jami

29. “Everyone has their own ways of expression. I believe we all have a lot to say, but finding ways to say it is more than half the battle.” - Criss Jami

30. “At first, they'll only dislike what you say, but the more correct you start sounding the more they'll dislike you.” - Criss Jami

31. “Has he been with a woman yet?” he asked remembering the girl at the barn. She shot him an angry glance.“Is that all you think about? Of course he hasn’t.He is only eleven.” “Nothing wrong with a boy starting early. I did.” “And look how well you’ve turned out.” - Angelo Tsanatelis

32. “It's okay to disagree with the thoughts or opinions expressed by other people. That doesn't give you the right to deny any sense they might make. Nor does it give you a right to accuse someone of poorly expressing their beliefs just because you don't like what they are saying. Learn to recognize good writing when you read it, even if it means overcoming your pride and opening your mind beyond what is comfortable.” - Ashly Lorenzana

33. “When we have to change an opinion about any one, we charge heavily to his account the inconvenience he thereby causes us.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

34. “Readers have the right to say whatever the fuck they want about a book. Period. They have that right. If they hate the book because the MC says the word “delicious” and the reader believes it’s the Devil’s word and only evil people use it, they can shout from the rooftops “This book is shit and don’t read it” if they want. If they want to write a review entirely about how much they hate the cover, they can if they want. If they want to make their review all about how their dog Foot Foot especially loved to pee on that particular book, they can."[Blog entry, January 9, 2012]” - Stacia Kane

35. “It's not objective. It's subjective.” Katya hooks her bra behind her back. “It's just what you think, not the truth.” - E. Lockhart

36. “Many scholars forget, it seems to me, that our enjoyment of the great works of literature depends more upon the depth of our sympathy than upon our understanding. The trouble is that very few of their laborious explanations stick in the memory. The mind drops them as a branch drops its overripe fruit. ... Again and again I ask impatiently, "Why concern myself with these explanations and hypotheses?" They fly hither and thither in my thought like blind birds beating the air with ineffectual wings. I do not mean to object to a thorough knowledge of the famous works we read. I object only to the interminable comments and bewildering criticisms that teach but one thing: there are as many opinions as there are men.” - Helen Keller

37. “NO reader has ANY obligation to an author, whether it be to leave a review or to write a "constructive" one. I put out a product. You are consumers of that product. Since when does that mean you have to kiss my ass? Hey, I like Pop-Tarts and eat them a few times a year; since when does that mean I'm obligated to support Kellogg's in any way except legally purchasing the Pop-Tarts before I eat them? I wasn't aware that purchasing and consuming a product meant I was under some sort of fucking thrall in which I'm only allowed to either praise the Pop-Tart (which to be honest isn't hard, especially the S'mores flavor) or, if I am going to criticize a flavor, offer a specific and detailed analysis as to why, phrased in as inoffensive and gentle a manner as possible so as not to upset the gentle people at Kellogg's."[Something in the Water? (blog post; January 9, 2012)]” - Stacia Kane

38. “Opinions are like nipples, everybody has one. Some have firm points, others are barely discernible through layers, and some are displayed at every opportunity regardless of whether the audience has stated "I am interested in your nipples" or not.” - David Thorne

39. “Pursue your goal. Opinions be damned.” - Stacy Verdick Case

40. “The public make use of the classics of a country as a means of checking the progress of Art. They degrade the classics into authorities.... A fresh mode of Beauty is absolutely distasteful to them, and whenever it appears they get so angry and bewildered that they always use two stupid expressions--one is that the work of art is grossly unintelligible; the other, that the work of art is grossly immoral. What they mean by these words seems to me to be this. When they say a work is grossly unintelligible, they mean that the artist has said or made a beautiful thing that is new; when they describe a work as grossly immoral, they mean that the artist has said or made a beautiful thing that is true.” - Oscar Wilde

41. “The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holders lack of rational conviction. Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately.” - Bertrand Russell

42. “Don't judge a man by his opinions, but what his opinions have made of him.” - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

43. “I am not one of those who in expressing opinions confine themselves to facts.” - Mark Twain

44. “Our opinions do not really blossom into fruition until we have expressed them to someone else.” - Mark Twain

45. “In conversation we are sometimes confused by the tone of our own voice, and mislead to make assertions that do not at all correspond to our opinions.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

46. “When a lady does consent to listen to an argument against her own opinions, she is always predetermined to withstand it - to listen only with her bodily ears, keeping the mental organs resolutely closed against the strongest reasoning.” - Anne Brontë

47. “Voting, we might even say, is the next to last refuge of the politically impotent. The last refuge is, of course, giving your opinion to a pollster, who will get a version of it through a desiccated question, and then will submerge it in a Niagara of similar opinions, and convert them into--what else?--another piece of news. Thus we have here a great loop of impotence: The news elicits from you a variety of opinions about which you can do nothing except to offer them as more news, about which you can do nothing.” - Neil Postman

48. “In America, everyone is entitled to an opinion, and it is certainly useful to have a few when a pollster shows up. But these are opinions of a quite different roder from eighteenth- or nineteenth-century opinions. It is probably more accurate to call them emotions rather than opinions, which would account for the fact that they change from week to week, as the pollsters tell us. What is happening here is that television is altering the meaning of 'being informed' by creating a species of information that might properly be called disinformation. I am using this world almost in the precise sense in which it is used by spies in the CIA or KGB. Disinformation does not mean false information. It means misleading information--misplace, irrelevant, fragmented or superficial information--information that creates the illusion of knowing something but which in fact leads one away from knowing. In saying this, I do not mean to imply that television news deliberately aims to deprive Americans of a coherent, contextual understanding of their world. I mean to say that when news is packaged as entertainment, that is the inevitable result. And in saying that the television news show entertains but does not inform, I am saying something far more serious than that we are being deprived of authentic information. I am saying we are losing our sense of what it means to be well informed. Ignorance is always correctable. But what shall we do if we take ignorance to be knowledge?” - Neil Postman

49. “Just remember: other people’s opinions are simply that—other people’s opinions. They are not fact, and they are certainly not “the truth.” It is your responsibility to question the authority you give others, to question opinions they want you to adopt as your own, and to question how it is they are observing the world themselves that has them seeing things as they do. Sometimes you need to take back the authority you are giving to the opinions of others and place a bit more trust in yourself.” - Margie Warrell

50. “Nothing ruins a good thing quite like knowing you share your opinions with mindless little tits.” - Yahtzee Croshaw

51. “Sometimes I think you don't really believe the things you say; you just like the sound of yourself having opinions.” - Amy Reed

52. “A prepared mind is always made up; it knows what it thinks and why it thinks that. When it's time to change, it just makes itself up a different way. A really made-up mind--made up properly, knowing what it knows and on what basis it knows it--is open. People close an undecided mind because they're trying to protect those sore uncertainties from getting bumped and scraped.” - John Barnese

53. “I cannot encourage any fabrication even for the sake of making people feel good. If I were to fabricate consciously and knowingly, I would not only be ordaining myself their enemy, but also ordaining myself God's enemy.” - Criss Jami

54. “But as I listened to my various mentors argue away the afternoon, I finally caught on to the basic point of it all. With chocolate, there are no straight answers. There are only strongly held opinions.” - Mort Rosenblum

55. “When we want to see someone in a certain way, we find a way, but when we don't we have to wake up and see who they truly are and not what our pain or anger chooses to believe.” - Shannon L. Alder

56. “Opinions are like a**holes, everyone has one and they are usually full of sh*t!” - Habeeb Akande

57. “While you judge me by my outward appearance I am silently doing the same to you, even though there's a ninety-percent chance that in both cases our assumptions are wrong.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

58. “Opinions are like kittens," he commented. "People are always giving them away.” - Elizabeth Bear

59. “Other people's heads are too wretched a place for true happiness to have its seat.” - Arthur Schopenhauer

60. “Most people think everybody feels about them much more violently than they actually do; they think other people's opinions of them swing through great arcs of approval or disapproval.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald

61. “Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won't come in.” - Alan Alda

62. “The modern habit of saying "This is my opinion, but I may be wrong" is entirely irrational. If I say that it may be wrong, I say that is not my opinion. The modern habit of saying "Every man has a different philosophy; this is my philosophy and it suits me" – the habit of saying this is mere weak-mindedness. A cosmic philosophy is not constructed to fit a man; a cosmic philosophy is constructed to fit a cosmos. A man can no more possess a private religion than he can possess a private sun and moon.” - G.K. Chesterton

63. “Tener opiniones es estar vendido a uno mismo. No tener opiniones es existir. Tener todas las opiniones es ser poeta.” - Fernando Pessoa

64. “Let them hear your voice so rarely that a simply-uttered word creates a hush of expectancy in the room.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

65. “I visited blathernodes, soaked myself in other people's opinions.” - Peter Watts

66. “You will find that people will always have opinions about your decisions. Don’t take it personally, it’s simply because they're not courageous enough to take action in their own lives. Be a leader in your life and pay no mind to those who lack the courage to do the same in theirs.” - Steve Maraboli

67. “One’s opinion should only be as strong as one’s knowledge on the matter.” - Eric Hirzel