“A man who trims himself to suit everybody will soon whittle himself away.” ~ Lord Acton
“Always there will be, along the sidelines of life, inferior souls who throw mud at those whose attainments they do not quite understand. The man who really accomplishes doesn’t pay attention to such detractors. If he did, he’d be on their level. He keeps an eye singled on the higher goal–and the mud never touches him.” ~ Jerome P. Fleishman
“As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed.” ~ James Madison
“Every man has a right to be wrong in his opinions. But no man has a right to be wrong in his facts.” ~ Bernard Baruch
“Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.” ~ Albert Einstein
“Fight for your opinions, but do not believe that they contain the whole truth or the only truth.” ~ Charles Anderson Dana
“He who has an opinion of his own, but depends upon the opinion and taste of others, is a slave.” ~ Klopstock
“How much time he saves who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks.” ~ Marcus Aurelius
“I’ve never had a humble opinion. If you’ve got an opinion, why be humble about it?” ~ Joan Baez
“I don’t care what people say about me. I do care about my mistakes.” ~ Socrates
“I wish to say what I think and feel today, with the proviso that tomorrow perhaps I shall contradict it all.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“If a man isn’t willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he’s no good.” ~ Ezra Pound
“If in the last few years you haven’t discarded a major opinion or acquired a new one, check your pulse. You may be dead.” ~ Gelett Burgess
“In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane.” ~ Oscar Wilde
“It is a golden rule not to judge men by their opinions but rather by what their opinions make of them.” ~ Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
“Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others.” ~ Virginia Woolf
“Man tends to treat all his opinions as principles.” ~ Herbert Agar
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
“One must judge men not by their opinions, but by what their opinions have made of them.” ~ Georg Lichtenberg
“Only he who bestirs himself can advance spiritually. The fool who uses extraneous aids for this, in the form of the ready-made opinions of others, only walks his path as if on crutches, while ignoring his own healthy limbs.” ~ Abd-Ru-Shin
“Opinion is ultimately determined by the feelings, and not by the intellect.” ~ Herbert Spencer
“Other people’s opinion of you does not have to become your reality.” ~ Les Brown
“Patterning your life around other’s opinions is nothing more than slavery.” ~ Lawana Blackwell
“The feeble tremble before opinion, the foolish defy it, the wise judge it, and the skillful direct it.” ~ Jeane Platiere
“The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls.” ~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton
“There is no greater mistake than the hasty conclusion that opinions are worthless because they are badly argued.” ~ Thomas Henry Huxley
“Things are not to be judged good or bad merely because the public think so.” ~ Lord Acton
“Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.” ~ John F. Kennedy
“We must not allow other people’s limited perceptions to define us.” ~ Virginia Satir
“What others say of me matters little; what I myself say and do matters much.” ~ Elbert Hubbard
“What we really are matters more than what other people think of us.” ~ Jawaharla Nehru
“When we try to explain the complexity of what we see to others who demand that things be laid out in straight paths, they often become resistent and critical… when our viewpoint repeatedly falls on deaf ears, we become silent - avoid confrontation. One source of human suffering arises when our words and actions are perceived, by those we serve or love, in a light of being different from that intended.” ~ Florence R. Krall
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” ~ Steven Paul (Steve) Jobs
