Conflicting Opinions Quotes

In the frank expression of conflicting opinions lies the greatest promise of wisdom in governmental action. ~ Louis D. Brandeis

It is often more important to act than to understand ... there are times ... when two conflicting opinions, though one happens to be right, are more perilous than one opinion which is wrong. ~ John Grierson

The result of feeling that we are separate minds in an alien,
and mostly stupid, universe is that we have no common sense, no way of making sense of the world upon which we are agreed in common. It's just my opinion against yours, and therefore the most aggressive and violent (and thus insensitive) propagandist makes the decisions. A muddle of conflicting opinions united by force of propaganda ~ Alan W. Watts

To follow Jesus is to pay the cost of discipleship, and then to die to ourselves, to our own interests, our own agendas and reputations. It is to pick up our crosses and count the cost of losing all that contradicts his will and his way - including our reputations before the world, and our standing with the people and in the communities that we once held dear. It is to live before one audience, the audience of One, and therefore to die to all other conflicting opinions and assessments. There is no room here for such contemporary ideas as the looking-glass self, and no consideration here for trivial contemporary obsessions such as one's legacy. ~ Os Guinness

I don't believe we need to sympathize with opposing views; I do believe we need to develop the capacity to acknowledge and empathize with conflicting opinions that are as passionately defended as our own. ~ Chris Rhyss Edwards

When your intelligence is shaken by the conflicting opinions of others don't get upset over it, because you know the truth. Just accept their opinions as mere words. You simply feel, "Yes, that's what they feel. Let them feel that way." It may appear to be conflicting, but you give the freedom to others to think the way they want and say what they want. The enlightened person is not affected by that. ~ Swami Satchidananda

There is no perfect strategic decision. One always has to pay a price. One always has to balance conflicting objectives, conflicting opinions, and conflicting priorities. The best strategic decision is only an approximation - and a risk. ~ Peter Drucker

Everything I say is right.
Everything I say is wrong.
There are many conflicting opinions in this industry.
Don't take one person's word as gospel, including mine.
Take what works for you. ~ Paul Russell

Trust yourself and try not to get lured off course by conflicting opinions that don't seem to sit right with you. ~ Auliq Ice

Opinions are like hearts. Everyone has one, but they are not ALL healthy. ~ Lakesha Ruise

Those works alone can have enduring success which successfully appeal to what is permanent in human nature
which, while suiting the taste of the day, contain truths and beauty deeper than the opinions and tastes of the day. ~ George Henry Lewes

The actual rewards that come from arguing with other people have nothing to do with winning and losing. A good argument helps us refine our own ideas and discover where our reasoning is the weakest. Other people's opposition can help us turn our own half-formed ideas into clear assertions backed by solid reasoning. And setting our ideas and opinions against someone else's helps us know each other better, which makes us better friends. We get these benefits from arguments when we collaborate with a partner. We do not get them when we try to destroy an enemy. That is how non-zero-sum games work. ~ Michael Austin

I can tell by my own reaction to it that this book is harmful. But let him only wait and perhaps one day he will admit to himself that this same book has done him a great service by bringing out the hidden sickness of his heart and making it visible. - Altered opinions do not alter a man's character (or do so very little); but they do illuminate individual aspects of the constellation of his personality which with a different constellation of opinions had hitherto remained dark and unrecognizable. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Look into the nature of things. Search out the grounds of your opinions, the for and against. ~ Frances Wright

The ordinary method of education is to imprint ideas and opinions, in the strict sense of the word, prejudices, on the mind of the child, before it has had any but a very few particular observations. It is thus that he afterwards comes to view the world and gather experience through the medium of those ready-made ideas, rather than to let his ideas be formed for him out of his own experience of life, as they ought to be. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

I devoured Gibbon. I rode triumphantly through it from end to end and enjoyed it all. I scribbled all my opinions on the margins of the pages ... From Gibbon I went to Macauley. I had learnt The Lays of Ancient Rome by heart, and loved them; and of course I knew he had written a history; but I had never read a page of it ... I accepted all Macauley wrote as gospel, and I was grieved to read his harsh judgements upon the Great Duke of Marlborough. ~ Winston Churchill

I have come slowly into possession of such powers as I have. I receive the opinions of my day. I do not conceive them. But I receive them into a vivid mind. ~ Woodrow Wilson

It is not things in themselves which trouble us, but our opinions of things. ~ Epictetus

A famous bon mot asserts that opinions are like arse-holes, in that everyone has one. There is great wisdom in this ... but I would add that opinions differ significantly from arse-holes, in that yours should be constantly and thoroughly examined.
We must think critically, and not just about the ideas of others. Be hard on your beliefs. Take them out onto the verandah and beat them with a cricket bat ... Be intellectually rigorous. Identify your biases, your prejudices, your privilege. ~ Tim Minchin

Those who would rule with an iron fist always fear the free expression of opinions by those they would suppress. ~ Neal Boortz

She has a lot of opinions, which is restful, as that way I don't have to have many of my own. ~ Tanith Lee

When you are present, your mind is silent. Free of opinions, concepts and beliefs and free of projections from the past and anxiety about the future, it is a perfectly clear instrument of expression. And the expression comes from the center of your Being. ~ Leonard Jacobson

Taking the line of least resistance, we lump the most different people together under the same heading. Taking the line of least resistance, we ascribe to them collective crimes, collective acts and opinions. "The Serbs have massacred…", "The English have devastated…", "The Jews have confiscated…", "The Blacks have torched", "The Arabs refuse…". We blithely express sweeping judgments on whole peoples, calling them "hardworking" and "ingenious", or "lazy", "touchy", "sly", "proud", or "obstinate". And sometimes this ends in bloodshed."

– Amin Maalouf "On Identity ~ Amin Maalouf

Ah, I fancy it is just the same with most of what you call your emancipation. You have read yourself into a number of new ideas and opinions. You have got a sort of smattering of recent discoveries in various fields - discoveries that seem to overthrow certain principles which have hitherto been held impregnable and unassailable. But all this has only been a matter of intellect, Miss West - superficial acquisition. It has not passed into your blood. ~ Henrik Ibsen

[I]t's difficult to make people see that what you have been taught counts for nothing, and that the only things worth having are the things you find out for yourself. Also, that when so many brands of what Chesterton calls 'fancy souls' and theories of life are offered you, there is no sense in not looking pretty carefully to see what you are going in for. [...] It isn't a case of 'Here is the Christian religion, the one authoritative and respectable rule of life. Take it or leave it'. It's 'Here's a muddling kind of affair called Life, and here are nineteen or twenty different explanations of it, all supported by people whose opinions are not to be sneezed at. Among them is the Christian religion in which you happpen to have been brought up. Your friend so-and-so has been brought up in quite a different way of thinking; is a perfectly splendid person and thoroughly happy. What are you going to do about it?' -- I'm worrying it out quietly, and whatever I get hold of will be valuable, because I've got it for myself; but really, you know, the whole question is not as simple as it looks. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

In the past, kong-an (koan) practicing meant checking someone's enlightenment. Now we use kong-ans to make our lives correct ... You must use kong-ans to take away your opinions. When you take away your opinions, your mind is clear like space, which means from moment to moment you can reflect any situation and respond correctly and meticulously. ~ Seungsahn

Historiology, always understood in its claim to possess the character of modern science, is a constant avoidance of history. Yet even in this avoidance, it still maintains a relation to history, and that makes historiology and the historiologist bivalent. If history is not explained historiologically and calculated in terms of a particular image for the specific ends of supporting a position and imparting a conviction, if history is instead placed back into the uniqueness of its inexplicability, and if, through this inexplicability, all historiological bustle and all the opinions and beliefs that arise from it are placed into question and into decision with respect to themselves, then what is being carried out is what could be called historical thinking. ~ Martin Heidegger

There's one thing that always interests me about you good people, not your certainty that the rest of us are swine, - no doubt we are, - but your certainty that your opinions are pearls. ~ Margaret Deland

My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs). ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

Mom." I couldn't believe she was doing this again. She was taking this moment, this time when I was strongest, away from me.

"I don't care what I have to do," she said, her voice low and even. "I don't care if I have to send you away or switch schools. I don't care if I have to follow you twenty-four hours a day, you will not see him, Halley. You will not destroy yourself this way."

"Why are you just assuming I'm going back to him?" I asked her, just as she was drawing in breath to make another point.

"Why don't you ask me what I said to him out there?"

She shut her mouth, caught off guard. "What?"

"Why don't you ever wait a second and see what I'm planning, or thinking, before you burst in with your opinions and ideas? You never even give me a chance."

"Yes, I do," she said indignantly.

"No," I said. "You don't. And then you wonder why I never tell you anyone or share anything with you. I can never trust you with anything or share anything with you. I can never trust you with anything, give you any piece of me without you grabbing it to keep for yourself."

"That's not true," she said slowly, but it was just now hitting her, I could see it. "Halley, you don't always know what's at stake, and I do."

"I will never learn," I said to her slowly, "until you let me."

And so we stood there in the kitchen, my mother and I, facing off over everything that had built up since J ~ Sarah Dessen

To me, it's worth getting offended by someone if it means I can trust that every word is their true opinion. ~ Sarah Glidden

Entertaining these opinions of the course to be pursued, I beg of gentlemen to look at the question, as I have done, in a calm review of facts and of principles. ~ Caleb Cushing

I don't see myself as beautiful, because I can see a lot of flaws. People have really odd opinions. They tell me I'm skinny, as if that's supposed to make me happy. ~ Angelina Jolie

A true leader stands up for his own beliefs and convictions,a business man follows public opinions and market researches. ~ Kamil Toume

4. The falseness of an opinion is not for us any objection to it: it is here, perhaps, that our new language sounds most strangely. The question is, how far an opinion is life-furthering, life- preserving, species-preserving, perhaps species-rearing, and we are fundamentally inclined to maintain that the falsest opinions (to which the synthetic judgments a priori belong), are the most indispensable to us, that without a recognition of logical fictions, without a comparison of reality with the purely IMAGINED world of the absolute and immutable, without a constant counterfeiting of the world by means of numbers, man could not live - that the renunciation of false opinions would be a renunciation of life, a negation of life. TO RECOGNISE UNTRUTH AS A CONDITION OF LIFE; that is certainly to impugn the traditional ideas of value in a dangerous manner, and a philosophy which ventures to do so, has thereby alone placed itself beyond good and evil. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

There is surely no contradiction in saying that a certain section of the community may be quite competent to protect the persons and property of the rest, yet quite unfit to direct our opinions, or to superintend our private habits. ~ Thomas Babington Macaulay

We ought to know that all people are not the same and so we must not expect the same attitude from all people. Different people behave differently and that is what makes different people different ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

It is possible that the malice of writers has been overrated (by myself among others). Reading their ruminations on their craft, one sees why this writer could not possibly like that one, would indeed consider him a menace. Literature is a battleground of conflicting faiths, and nobler passions than envy are involved. ~ Wilfrid Sheed

What you call disorder is nothing else than one of the laws of the order you comprehend not and which you have erroneously named disorder because its effects, though good for Nature, run counter to your convenience or jar your opinions. ~ Marquis De Sade

I always say that my agenda is sufficiently gracious to leave more than ample room for the agenda of others. But if that's the case, why is it that such a big room only has space for one chair? ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

The "answer" doesn't come in a formula or a one-sentence aphorism. Rather, the path to ongoing enlightenment begins by loosening our death grip on our opinions, beliefs, and ingrained behavior. When we let go, we create space to let in new insights and observations - we explore, we expand, and we become more aware. Letting go and opening up allows us to confront repressed feelings and fears, and allows love and compassion to flourish. That's why one person's "answer" might offer little insight to someone else. ~ Joseph Deitch

Nobody can say anything about you. Whatsoever people say is about themselves. But you become very shaky, because you are still clinging to a false center. That false center depends on others, so you are always looking to what people are saying about you. And you are always following other people, you are always trying to satisfy them. You are always trying to be respectable, you are always trying to decorate your ego. This is suicidal. Rather than being disturbed by what others say, you should start looking inside yourself…

Whenever you are self-conscious you are simply showing that you are not conscious of the self at all. You don't know who you are. If you had known, then there would have been no problem - then you are not seeking opinions. Then you are not worried what others say about you - it is irrelevant!

When you are self-conscious you are in trouble. When you are self-conscious you are really showing symptoms that you don't know who you are. Your very self-consciousness indicates that you have not come home yet. ~ Osho

a bemused Lincoln noted how he was bombarded with a range of opinions from "religious men" all "equally certain that they represent the Divine will. ~ George C. Rable

Don't be a loser who oppresses others for their different looks, opinions and beliefs but be a champion for those who are abused, in despair and are voiceless. Try helping humanity and never hurt it!
www.bullyingben.com ~ Timothy Pina