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Opinion is a view or judgement about something …

• Opinion: A belief, judgment, or way of thinking about something: what someone thinks about a particular thing. Merriam Webster
• Opinion: A belief or judgment that rests on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty. Dictionary.com
• Belief,  Prejudice,  Facts,  Assumption,  Thinking,  Closed-mindedness

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… not necessarily based on fact or knowledge

• Opinion: A view or judgement formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge. Oxford Dictionary
• I’m not sure I want popular opinion on my side – I’ve noticed those with the most opinions often have the fewest facts. Bethania McKenstry
• Opinion is that exercise of the human will which helps us to make a decision without information. John Erskine
• Knowledge,  Facts

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The human mind is fertile for opinions …

• The human mind is like a fertile ground where seeds are continually being planted. The seeds are opinions, ideas, and concepts. You plant a seed, a thought, and it grows. The word is like a seed, and the human mind is so fertile! The only problem is that too often it is fertile for the seeds of fear. Every human mind is fertile, but only for those kinds of seeds it is prepared for. What is important is to see which kind of seeds our mind is fertile for, and to prepare it to receive the seeds of love. Don Miguel Ruiz

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… and the world abounds in different opinions on different subjects

• So many men, so many opinions. Terence
• There are as many opinions as there are experts. Franklin D. Roosevelt
• 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. Anton Chekhov

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We tend to jump to opinions to avoid the pain of being without one

• The being without an opinion is so painful to human nature that most people will leap to a hasty opinion rather than undergo it. Walter Bagehot
• It is in numberless instances happier to have a false opinion which we believe true, than a true one of which we doubt. Fulke Greville

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Often the opinions most passionately held are grounded on the least

• 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
• The fewer facts you have in support of an opinion, the stronger your emotional attachment to that opinion.
• We are most likely to get angry and excited in our opposition to some idea when we ourselves are not quite certain of our own position, and are inwardly tempted to take the other side. Thomas Mann
• In my experience, the most staunchly held views are based on ignorance or accepted dogma, not carefully considered accumulations of facts. The more you expose the intricacies and realities of the situation, the less clear- cut things become. Mary Roach

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Find out what your opinions are on things that matter to you

• The difficult part in an argument is not to defend one’s opinion but rather to know it. André Maurois
• Average individuals often have not the slightest idea of what they are, of what they want, of what their own opinions are whereas self-actualizing individuals have superior awareness of their own impulses, desires, opinions, and subjective reactions in general. Abraham Maslow

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Make sure your opinions are informed

• You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.  Harlan Ellison
• The strength of one’s opinion should not exceed their knowledge on the matter. Eric Hirzel
• The recipe for perpetual ignorance is: Be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge. Elbert Hubbard
• One’s opinion should only be as strong as one’s knowledge on the matter. Eric Hirzel
• Every man has a right to his own opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts. Bernard M. Baruch
• We have no right to express an opinion until we know all of the answers. Kurt Cobain

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Make sure your opinions have solid reasoning behind them

• Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear. Thomas Jefferson
• A reasonable opinion must ever be in danger where Reason is not judge. William penn
• Treat with utmost respect your power of forming opinions, for this power alone guards you against making assumptions that are contrary to nature and judgments that overthrow the rule of reason. Marcus Aurelius
• Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to admit it. Thomas Jefferson
• It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them! Friedrich Nietzsche
• Reason

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Make sure your opinions are the result of careful thought and understanding

• An opinion should be the result of thought, not a substitute for it. Jef Mallett
• Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. John F. Kennedy
• A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding. Marshall McLuhan
• Understanding,  Reflection

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Make sure you can argue your opinions in a rational and logical way

• I have what I call an iron prescription that helps me keep sane when I naturally drift toward preferring one ideology over another and that is: I say that I’m not entitled to have an opinion on this subject unless I can state the arguments against my position better than the people who support it. I think only when I’ve reached that state am I qualified to speak. This business of not drifting into extreme ideology is a very, very important thing in life. Charlie Munger
• Be able to defend your arguments in a rational way. Otherwise, all you have is an opinion. Marilyn vos Savant
• All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others. Douglas Adams
• Rationality,  Logic

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Make sure your opinions have evidence behind them

• There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance. Hippocrates
• Science is the father of knowledge, but opinion breeds ignorance. Hippocrates
• 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

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Make sure none of your opinions are groundless prejudices

• Prejudice is a great time saver. You can form opinions without having to get the facts. B. White
• Prejudice is a vagrant opinion without visible means of support. Ambrose Bierce
• Prejudice is not bigotry or superstition, although prejudice sometimes may degenerate into these. Prejudice is pre- judgment, the answer with which intuition and ancestral consensus of opinion supply a man when he lacks either time or knowledge to arrive at a decision predicated upon pure reason. Russell Kirk
• Opinions founded on prejudice are always sustained with the greatest violence. Hebrew Proverb
• Do you know what we call opinion in the absence of evidence? We call it prejudice. Michael Crichton
• Prejudice

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Don’t get stuck in your opinions …

• We form opinions and then spend our entire lifetime validating what we believe to be true. This rigidity is sad, because there is so much we can learn from points of view that are different from our own. It’s also sad because the stubbornness it takes to keep our heart and mind closed to everything other than our own point of view creates a great deal of inner stress.  Richard Carlson

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… for a fixed point of view creates a closed mind …

• A closed mind believes its opinions are truths, not merely hypotheses.
• A closed mind has strong opinions, irrespective of how much it knows.
• Obstinate: Stubbornly refusing to change one’s opinion or chosen course of action, despite attempts to persuade one to do so. Oxford Dictionary
• Obstinate people can be divided into the opinionated, the ignorant, and the boorish. Aristotle
• Obstinacy in opinions holds the dogmatist in the chains of error, without hope of emancipation. John C. Granville
• Nothing so obstinately stands in the way of all sorts of progress as pride of opinion; while nothing is so foolish and baseless. Jeffrey R. Holland
• Closed mindedness,  Open-mindedness

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… a mind that is stagnant and sterile

• The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind. Friedrich Nietzsche
• The snake that cannot shed its skin perishes. So do the spirits who are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be spirit. Friedrich Nietzsche
• The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind. William Blake
• Most often people seek in life occasions for persisting in their opinions rather than for educating themselves. Andre Gide

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Having a fixed point of view is a kind of death

• Even as you grow wiser and wiser with age you must remind yourself that an understanding is never absolutely final. What’s currently right could easily be wrong later.  Thus, the most destructive illusion is a settled point of view.  Since life is continuous growth and movement, choosing a fixed point of view is essentially a declaration of death.  Marc and Angel Chernoff
• The most fatal illusion is the settled point of view. Since life is growth and motion, a fixed point of view kills anybody who has one. Brooks Atkinson
• Death

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Only the foolish and the dead never change their opinions

• The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinions. James Russell Lowell
• The circumstances of the world are so variable that an irrevocable purpose or opinion is almost synonymous with a foolish one. William H. Seward
• Stubborn and ardent clinging to one’s opinion is the best proof of stupidity. Michel de Montaigne
• Nothing so obstinately stands in the way of all sorts of progress as pride of opinion; while nothing is so foolish and baseless. Jeffrey R. Holland
• 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
• He that never changes his opinions, never corrects his mistakes, will never be wiser on the morrow than he is today. Tryon Edwards
• Ten gods cannot change the opinion of one fool, especially if another fool agrees with him. Abraham Miller

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We stick to our opinions out of pride and a desire to be right …

• One sticks to an opinion because he prides himself on having come to it on his own, and another because he has taken great pains to learn it and is proud to have grasped it: and so both do so out of vanity. Friedrich Nietzsche
• Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they love truth. Joseph Joubert
• Nothing so obstinately stands in the way of all sorts of progress as pride of opinion; while nothing is so foolish and baseless. Jeffrey R. Holland
• My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I’m right. Ashleigh Brilliant
• From a worldly point of view there is no mistake so great as that of being always right. Samuel Butler
• While most peoples’ opinions change, the conviction of their correctness never does.
• They dispute not in order to find or even to seek Truth, but for victory, and to appear the more learned and strenuous upholders of a contrary opinion. Such persons should be avoided by all who have not a good breastplate of patience. Giordano Bruno
• Pride,  Let go of the need to be right

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… and because we see our opinions as part of who we are and even grow to love them

• Some have wondered, that disputes about opinions should so often end in personalities; but the fact is, that such disputes begin with personalities, for our opinions are a part of ourselves. Charles Caleb Colton
• It is always chilling in friendly intercourse, to say you have no opinion to give. And if you deliver an opinion at all, it is mere stupidity not to do it with an air of conviction and well-founded knowledge. You make it your own in uttering it, and naturally get fond of it. George Eliot
• It is only natural, of course, that each man should think his own opinions best: the crow loves his fledgling, and the ape his cub. Thomas More
• Men will die for an opinion as soon as for anything else. William Hazlitt

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Out of pride, we also try to convert others to our opinions

• The joy a person is usually seen to express at the conversion of another to his opinion is seldom more than the impulse of egotistical satisfaction at being considered worthy of didactic imitation. Norman Macdonald

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To convert others to our opinion feels like a kind of immortality

• Each person thinks that he has the formula for triumphing over life’s limitations and knows with authority what it means to be a man, and he usually tries to win a following for his particular patent. Today we know that people try so hard to win converts for their point of view because it is more than merely an outlook on life: it is an immortality formula. Ernest Becker

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Realise you are not married to your opinions

• Judge less–or at least later. Give new ideas and images a chance. Understand that everyone has his own truth or her own. Remember: you are not married to any belief, opinion, or ideology. Expect to discover something delicious every day. Victoria Moran

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Opinions are made to be changed …

• Opinions are made to be changed or how is truth to be got at? Lord Byron
• As long as it doesn’t harm anyone, change your opinions now and then and be unashamedly contradictory. Paulo Coelho
• Open-mindedness

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… especially when more information comes along

• For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise. Benjamin Franklin
• Don’t change your mind just because people are offended; change your mind if you’re wrong. Criss Jami

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If you’re prepared to change your point of view, you will see far more …

• In the world of mind, as in that of matter, we always occupy a position. He who is continually changing his point of view will see more, and that too more clearly, than one who, statue-like, forever stands upon the same pedestal; however lofty and well- placed that pedestal may be. Arthur Helps

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… whereas a fixed opinion will blind you to truth

• You don’t see anything as it is, but distorted and reduced by mental labels, concepts, judgments, opinions and reactive patterns. Eckhart Tolle
• The more opinions you have, the less you see. Wim Wenders
• There is no man so blind as one who has made up his mind. Brian Herbert & Keven J. Anderson
• Truth

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Having different opinions to others often leads to conflict …

• Conflict occurs with two or more people who, despite their first attempts at agreement, do not yet have agreement on a course of action, usually because their values, perspectives and opinions are contradictory in nature. Carter McNamara, PhD
• Conflict management

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… because when someone disagrees with our point of view, we take it as an attack against our sense of self

• To agree with in opinion, is to honor, as being a sign of approving his judgment and wisdom. To dissent, is dishonor, and an upbraiding of error. Thomas Hobbes
• Transcending the ego

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However, this does need to be so

• To observe people in conflict is a necessary part of a child’s education. It helps him to understand and accept his own occasional hostilities and to realize that differing opinions need not imply an absence of love. Milton R. Sapirstein
• Do not think of knocking out another person’s brains because he differs in opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself on the head because you differ from yourself ten years ago. Horace Mann

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Realise your opinion is just an opinion and everybody has a different viewpoint

• Your opinion is your opinion, your perception is your perception–do not confuse them with “facts” or “truth”. Wars have been fought and millions have been killed because of the inability of men to understand the idea that EVERYBODY has a different viewpoint. John Moore
• Diversity

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Realise your opinion is just an opinion; and not the one and only truth

• Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth. Marcus Aurelius
• Your opinion is your opinion, your perception is your perception–do not confuse them with “facts” or “truth”. Wars have been fought and millions have been killed because of the inability of men to understand the idea that EVERYBODY has a different viewpoint. John Moore
• It does take great maturity to understand that the opinion we are arguing for is merely the hypothesis we favor, necessarily imperfect, probably transitory, which only very limited minds can declare to be a certainty or a truth. Milan Kundera, Encounter
• But opinions, judgments, memories, dreaming about the future—ninety percent of the thoughts spinning around in our heads have no essential reality. Charlotte J. Beck
• Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion. Democritus of Abdera
• Truth

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Know that all opinions are influenced by biases and vested interests, even if you’re not conscious of it

• One can give a really unbiased opinion only about things that do not interest one. Oscar Wilde
• Opinions have vested interests just as men have. Samuel Butler
• Our opinions partake, more or less, of the prejudices of our class, party, or sect. We are all largely pledged, through interest, affection, or passion, to particular classes of opinion, and the strength of efforts to get released from these pledges, is the measure of our advancement. Christian Nestell Bovee

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Knowing all this, hold your opinions lightly

• Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to admit it. Thomas Jefferson
• Don’t seek the truth. Just cease to cherish opinions. Zen saying
• A closed mind believes its opinions are truths, not merely hypotheses.
• I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn’t wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine. Bertrand Russell

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Always value the truth over your opinion

• It is better by assenting to truth to conquer opinion, than by assenting to opinion to be conquered by truth. Epictetus

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Realise there is great wealth and wisdom in a diversity of opinions …

• There never were in the world two opinions alike, no more than two hairs or two grains; the most universal quality is diversity. Michel de Montaigne
• The unity of freedom has never relied on uniformity of opinion. John F. Kennedy
• Wide differences of opinion in matters of religious, political, and social belief must exist if conscience and intellect alike are not to be stunted, if there is to be room for healthy growth. Theodore Roosevelt
• 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
• It is just that we should be grateful, not only to those with whose views we may agree, but also to those who have expressed more superficial views; for these also contributed something, by developing before us the powers of thought. Aristotle
• The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. John Stuart Mill
• Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making. John Milton
• Diversity,  Wisdom

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… and there is nothing dangerous about it

• I think we Americans tend to put too high a price on unanimity, as if there were something dangerous and illegitimate about honest differences of opinion honestly expressed by honest men. J. William Fulbright

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Recognise that everyone is entitled to their own opinion

• Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and how they see things. Have you noticed, people do see things the way that they see things? Byron Katie
• Everyone is entitled to their own incorrect opinion. Brian Vaszily
• You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant. Harlan Ellison

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Recognise that the opinions of others is the product of their own experience

• You can disagree with another person’s opinions. You can disagree with their doctrines. You can’t disagree with their experience. Krista Tippett
• Acceptance doesn’t mean you have to accept everyone else’s opinions and suppress your own. It simply means that you accept other people for who they are and where they are, and recognize that their opinions are the product of their own unique experience of life. Matthew Kelly
• Don’t take things personally” means you should not let other people’s comments, actions, attitudes, opinions or choices affect how you feel about yourself or your life, even if they are a direct and personal attack. Kim Giles
• Experience

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Respect the opinion of others

• I have learned never to ridicule any man’s opinion, however strange it may seem. Arthur Conan Doyle
• Always respect another’s opinion and another’s point of view. Sri Sathya Sai Baba
• Respect

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Allow people to think for themselves without imposing your opinions on them

• The only way in which one human being can properly attempt to influence another is by encouraging him to think for himself, instead of endeavoring to instill ready-made opinions into his head. Leslie Stephen
• Acceptance is the wisdom to take people, situations, circumstances, and events as they occur, rather than constantly trying to impose our agendas and opinions upon them. Only when we arrive at the wisdom of acceptance do we begin to truly live. Acceptance liberates us. It sets us free to enjoy the moment. Matthew Kelly
• It is always imprudent to force opinions upon others; if they do not question the arguments they will the authority, and having ventured to examine the one, will feel less delicacy in rejecting the other. Norman Macdonald

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Ask others for their opinion and listen with an open mind

• To seduce most anyone, ask for and listen to his opinion. Malcolm Forbes
• The four most important words: What is your opinion?
• The greatest folly is to accept expert statements uncritically. At the very least, we should always seek another opinion. Garrett Hardin
• It’s as simple as this. When people don’t unload their opinions and feel like they’ve been listened to, they won’t really get on board. Patrick Lencioni
• 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
• Go exploring. Explore ideas, places, and opinions. The inside of the echo chamber is where all the boring people hang out.   Jessica Hagy
• It’s as simple as this. When people don’t unload their opinions and feel like they’ve been listened to, they won’t really get on board. Patrick Lencioni
• Open-mindedness

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Try to understand things from the other person’s point of view

• You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view. Harper Lee
• If you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it. Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird
• Genuinely consider the other person’s point of view. Imagine yourself in his shoes. Never say “you’re wrong.” In fact, try hard to look for areas of agreement and build on them. Stephen Hopson
• The next time you find yourself in an argument, rather than defend your position, see if you can see the other point of view first. Richard Carlson
• Today my awareness will remain established in Defencelessness. I will relinquish the need to defend my point of view. I will feel no need to convince or persuade others to accept my point of view. I will remain open to all points of view. Deepak Chopra
• Try repeating the words that someone is saying to you. This mirroring technique can keep both the speaker and the listener ‘centered’ in a difficult conversation, especially when the attitude of the person doing the mirroring is to gain understanding of a different point of view. Clare Albright, Psy.D.
• We can rarely see things from the point of view of another person because we look at the facts through the screen of an impression or an interest which distorts our view; and then there are accusations, quarrels and misunderstanding. Barry Long
• When in a discussion, don’t forget to listen and ask questions! It’s important to understand the other person’s point of view as well. Elizabeth Scott, M.S.
• A good listener tries to understand what the other person is saying. In the end he may disagree sharply, but because he disagrees, he wants to know exactly what it is he is disagreeing with. Kenneth A. Wells
• If you convinced me and I convinced you, would there not still be two points of view? Richard Armour
• First seek to understand

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Recognise that no opinion is worthless just because it is badly argued

• There is no greater mistake than the hasty conclusion that opinions are worthless because they are badly argued. Thomas Henry Huxley

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Once others feel understood, they’re far more likely to consider your point of view

• In order to have influence with other people, they must first feel that you understand them. And once they feel understood, they are open to hearing your ideas, your counsel, and your point of view.  Stephen Covey

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Have the courage to share your own opinions honestly

• The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell truth that is in us . . . the divine flood of light and life no longer flow into our souls. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
• Courage

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Discussing opinions is always better than arguing them

• Arguments only confirm people in their own opinions. Booth Tarkington
• I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect. Edward Gibbon

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We hate to stand alone in our opinions

• My opinion, my conviction, gains immensely in strength and sureness the minute a second mind has adopted it. Novalis
• Man is a gregarious animal, and much more so in his mind than in his body. He may like to go alone for a walk, but he hates to stand alone in his opinions.  George Santayana

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We often ask for advice just to have our opinions strengthened and validated by others

• Most people when they come to you for advice, come to have their own opinions strengthened, not corrected. Josh Billings
• I never had a man come to me for advice yet, but what I soon discovered that he thought more of his own opinion than he did of mine. Josh Billings
• Man is never less sincere than when he asks, or offers, advice. When he asks it, he seems to defer to the wisdom of his friend, but really he seeks approval of his own opinion, and to make his friend responsible with him for his actions. Duc de La Rochefoucauld

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We carve our opinions to fit in with the opinions of others

• For fear of not being accepted, we tailor our personality, mince our words, and carve our opinions to fit in. Danielle LaPorte

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Many of our opinions are not our own but belong to popular opinion

• Our opinions are not our own. William Hazlitt
• Few have opinions: fewer still have their own opinions. Ivan Panin

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We adopt popular opinion because it’s the easy thing to do …

• Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. John F. Kennedy
• The public buys its opinions as it buys its meat, or takes in its milk, on the principle that it is cheaper to do this than to keep a cow. So it is, but the milk is more likely to be watered.  Samuel Butler

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… often to save ourselves the effort of thinking for ourselves

• Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are incapable of forming such opinions. Albert Einstein
• Public opinion is held in reverence. It settles everything. Some think it is the voice of God. Mark Twain
• There is simply too much to think about. It is hopeless — too many kinds of special preparation are required. In electronics, in economics, in social analysis, in history, in psychology, in international politics, most of us are, given the oceanic proliferating complexity of things, paralyzed by the very suggestion that we assume responsibility for so much. This is what makes packaged opinion so attractive. Saul Bellow

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The greater the number of people who share an opinion, the more we tend to believe it

• The presumption that any current opinion is not wholly false, gains in strength according to the number of its adherents. Herbert Spencer

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The problem is that conventional opinion often turns out to be wrong …

• Conventional opinion is the ruin of our souls. Rumi
• Acknowledge the complexity of the world and resist the impression that you easily understand it. People are too quick to accept conventional wisdom, because it sounds basically true and it tends to be reinforced by both their peers and opinion leaders, many of whome have never looked at whether the facts support the received wisdom. It’s a basic fact of life that many things “everybody knows” turn out to be wrong. Jim Rogers
• I’m not sure I want popular opinion on my side – I’ve noticed those with the most opinions often have the fewest facts. Bethania McKenstry
• But it is just when opinions universally prevail and we have added lip service to their authority that we become sometimes most keenly conscious that we do not believe a word that we are saying. Virginia Woolf
• Everybody is wrong about everything, just about all the time. Chuck Klosterman
• Popular opinions, on subjects not palpable to sense, are often true, but seldom or never the whole truth. John Stuart Mill
• At any given moment, public opinion is a chaos of superstition, misinformation, and prejudice. Gore Vidal

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… and can even turn out to be morally reprehensible

• Unity of opinion, abstractedly considered, is neither desirable, nor a good … for men may be all agreed in error, and in that case unanimity is an evil. Charles Caleb Colton
• Unity of opinion is indeed a glorious and desirable thing, and its circle cannot be too strong and extended, if the centre be truth; but if the centre be error, the greater the circumference, the greater the evil. Charles Caleb Colton

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History has shown that just because an opinion is held by many for a long time doesn’t mean it’s not absurd

• It is as certain that many opinions, now general, will be rejected by future ages, as it is that many, once general, are rejected by the present. John Stuart Mill
• The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.  Bertrand Russell
• It is pure illusion to think that an opinion that passes down from century to century, from generation to generation, may not be entirely false. Pierre Bayle
• Public opinion is a compound of folly, weakness, prejudice, wrong feeling, right feeling, obstinacy, and newspaper paragraphs. Robert Peel
• It is not always easy to diagnose. The simplest form of stupidity – the mumbling, nose-picking, stolid incomprehension – can be detected by anyone. But the stupidity which disguises itself as thought, and which talks so glibly and eloquently, indeed never stops talking, in every walk of life is not so easy to identify, because it marches under a formidable name, which few dare attack. It is called Popular Opinion… Robertson Davies
• And it’s my opinion, and that’s only my opinion, you are a lunatic. Just because there are a few hundred other people sharing your lunacy with you does not make you any saner. Doomed, he? Oleg Kiselev

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Popular opinion can be a kind of tyranny if you confine yourself to it …

• One should respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.  Bertrand Russell
• Public opinion, a vulgar, impertinent, anonymous tyrant who deliberately makes life unpleasant for anyone who is not content to be the average man. R. Inge
• Public opinion is the worst of all opinions. Nicolas Chamfort
• There is nothing that makes more cowards and feeble men than public opinion. Henry Ward Beecher

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… for it is an omnipotent force …

• Private opinion is weak, but public opinion is almost omnipotent. Henry Ward Beecher
• Public opinion is stronger than the legislature, and nearly as strong as the ten commandments. Charles Dudley Warner

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… that dictates what is seen as right and wrong

• I’ll tell you what’s the greatest power under heaven, and that is public opinion–the ruling belief in society about what is right and what is wrong, what is honourable and what is shameful. That’s the steam that is to work the engines. George Eliot
• There is no such thing as right and wrong, there’s just popular opinion. Jeffrey Goines

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Popular opinion is notoriously resistant to new ideas

• New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common. John Locke
• Public opinion is less tolerant than any system of law. George Orwell
• It requires ages to destroy a popular opinion. Voltaire

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To be independent of popular opinion is the first formal condition of achieving anything great

• No one has ever succeeded in pleasing everyone, and you won’t be the first. Even Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., the Dalai Lama, and many pure-hearted world change agents incurred the wrath of those who did not understand them. Great world- movers do not turn back or compromise their integrity for the sake of popular opinion. They are true to their inner guidance and their relationship with their Higher Power. Rather than please people, they please their soul, which is all that really matters. Alan Cohen
• To be independent of public opinion is the first formal condition of achieving anything great. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
• The only permission, the only validation, and the only opinion that matters in our quest for greatness is our own. Steve Maraboli
• Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion. Charles Kuralt
• Conformity

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Be wise and think for yourself instead of automatically following the opinion of the herd

• A wise man makes his own decisions, an ignorant man follows public opinion. Chinese proverb
• Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. John F. Kennedy
• Wisdom and foolishness are practically the same. Both are indifferent to the opinions of the world. Joseph Campbell

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Value your freedom of thought over the confines of public opinion

• Your life will be good and secure when aliveness will mean more to you than security; love more than money; your freedom more than partyline line or public opinion; when the mood of Beethoven or Bach will be the mood of your total existence… Wilhelm Reich
• Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul. Mark Twain

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Stop recycling the opinions of others and form your own

• Public opinion… requires us to think other men’s thoughts, to speak other men’s words, to follow other men’s habits. Walter Bagehot
• Often what we call ‘thinking’ is merely the recycling the opinions of others. Nathaniel Branden
• Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation. Oscar Wilde
• You ought to stop listening to stereotypes and start forming your own opinions. Stephanie Perkins
• When some folks agree with my opinions I begin to suspect I’m wrong. Kin Hubbard
• Public opinion is no more than this: What people think that other people think. Alfred Austin

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Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion …

• Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric. Bertrand Russell
• In this age, the mere example of non-conformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage which it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time. John Stuart Mill

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… but don’t think either that your opinion is right just because it isn’t conventional

• Some `advanced thinkers’ are of the opinion that anyone who differs from the conventional opinion must be in the right. This is a delusion; if it were not, truth would be easier to come by than it is. Bertrand Russell

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We greatly fear the opinions of others, especially their judgements of us

• The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell truth that is in us . . . the divine flood of light and life no longer flow into our souls. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
• The greatest fear in the world is of the opinions of others. And the moment you are unafraid of the crowd you are no longer a sheep, you become a lion. A great roar arises in your heart, the roar of freedom. Osho
• The feeble tremble before opinion, the foolish defy it, the wise judge it, the skilful direct it. Jeanne-Marie Roland
• Conscience is, in most, an anticipation of the opinion of others. Henry Taylor
• Rejection,  Criticism,  Approval seeking

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We even care for the opinion of people we don’t care about

• We are so vain that we care even for the opinion of those we don’t care for. Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

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Fear of the opinion of others stops us from being ourselves and weakens us

• In civilized life, where the happiness, and indeed almost the existence, of man depends so much upon the opinion of his fellow men, he is constantly acting a studied part. Washington Irving
• If you shape your life according to nature, you will never be poor; if according to people’s opinions, you will never be rich. Seneca
• If you fuel your journey on the opinions of others, you are going to run out of gas. Steve Maraboli
• Patterning your life around other’s opinions is nothing more than slavery. Lawana Blackwell
• Literature is strewn with the wreckage of those who have minded beyond reason the opinion of others. Virginia Woolf
• Be who you are

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Some people rail against the right of others to form opinions of them – but this is just fighting against what is inevitable

• People can have their opinions about everything in the world, but people’s opinions end where the tip of my nose begins. Your opinions of others can only go so far as to where their own shoreline is. The world is for your taking, but other people are not. One is only allowed to have an opinion of me, if that person is done educating him/herself on everything about me. Before people educate themselves on everything about you, they’re not allowed to open their venomous mouths and have an opinion about you. C. JoyBell C.
• People will always have opinions about your decision because they’re not courageous enough to take action on their opinion. Steve Maraboli
• I don’t care what you think unless it is about me. Kurt Cobain

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The bottom line is you must not let the opinions of others effect your opinion of yourself

• An issue many people experience in life is that they allow other people’s opinions to influence how they see themselves. We make the mistake of accepting the judgment of others as an absolute truth. Do not grant others the power to define who you are or how you feel about yourself; this is something you need to remain in control of. Ashley Fern
• Never let someone’s thoughts and opinions affect your opinion of yourself. When you please others in hopes of being accepted, you lose your self- worth in the process.
• Most fears of rejection rest on the desire for approval from other people. Don’t base your self-esteem on their opinions. Harvey Mackay

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Don’t let the opinions of others become your reality

• Other people’s opinion of you do not have to become your reality. Les Brow
• Whenever we hear an opinion and believe it, we make an agreement, and it becomes part of our belief system. Don Miguel Ruiz
• Your opinion is not my reality. Steve Maraboli

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Don’t let the opinions of others stop you from being yourself or doing your thing

• Don’t waste your energy trying to change opinions … Do your thing, and don’t care if they like it. Tina Fey
• Don’t let the opinions of the average man sway you. Dream, and he thinks you’re crazy. Succeed, and he thinks you’re lucky. Acquire wealth, and he thinks you’re greedy. Pay no attention. He simply doesn’t understand. Robert G. Allen
• Don’t be intimidated by other people’s opinions. Only mediocrity is sure of itself, so take risks and do what you really want to do. Paulo Coelho
• Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinions of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth. Katherine Mansfield
• 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, The Alchemist
• How would your life be different if…You stopped allowing other people to dilute or poison your day with their words or opinions? Let today be the day…You stand strong in the truth of your beauty and journey through your day without attachment to the validation of others. Steve Maraboli
• Follow your own path,  Be who you are

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Recognise that people’s opinions of you are only opinions and not facts

• Realize that rejection is a person’s opinion. You must be able to accept that person’s opinion as opinion and not fact.
• Until we approve of us, we can never buy that someone approves of us. We can agree that that’s their opinion of us, but what what they’re really experiencing, we can never know.  Byron Katie
• Disapproval: Possession or expression of an unfavourable opinion. Oxford Dictionary
• Criticism is just someone else’s opinion. Even people who are experts in their fields are sometimes wrong. It is up to you to choose whether to believe some of it, none of it, or all of it. What you think is what counts. Rodolfo Costa

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Even your reputation is just an opinion

• If people insist that honor is dearer than life itself, what they really mean is that existence and well- being are as nothing compared with other people’s opinions. Of course, this may be only an exaggerated way of stating the prosaic truth that reputation, that is, the opinion others have of us, is indispensable if we are to make any progress in the world. Arthur Schopenhauer
• Reputation

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Stop attaching such importance to the opinions of others …

• Your high opinion of me is your opinion only. Any moment you may change it. Why attach importance to opinions, even your own? Nisargadatta Maharaj
• The opinion which other people have of you is their problem, not yours. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
• Away with the world’s opinion of you—it’s always unsettled and divided. Seneca
• It’s a good thing to learn early that other people’s opinions do not matter, unless they happen to be true. Phyllis Bottome
• A tiger doesn’t lose sleep over the opinion of sheep. Zag

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… and instead, attach far more importance to your own

• Why should we worry about what others think of us, do we have more confidence in their opinions than we do our own? Brigham Young
• Life is too short to waste any amount of time on wondering what other people think about you. In the first place, if they had better things going on in their lives, they wouldn’t have the time to sit around and talk about you. What’s important to me is not others’ opinions of me, but what’s important to me is my opinion of myself. C. JoyBell C.

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Realise peoples’ opinions of you are hardly ever as strong as you think

• 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
• We probably wouldn’t worry about what people think of us if we could know how seldom they do. Olin Miller

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Become immune to others’ opinions of you by not taking them personally …

• Don’t take things personally” means you should not let other people’s comments, actions, attitudes, opinions or choices affect how you feel about yourself or your life, even if they are a direct and personal attack. Kim Giles
• When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering. Miguel Ruiz
• Taking things personally makes you an easy prey for predators. They can hook you easily with one little opinion and feed you whatever poison they want, and because you take it personally, you eat it up. You eat all their emotional garbage, and now it becomes your garbage. But if you do not take it personally, you are immune in the middle of hell. Immunity to the poison in the middle of hell is the gift of this agreement. Don Miguel Ruiz
• When another blames you or hates you, or people voice similar criticisms, go to their souls, penetrate inside and see what sort of people they are. You will realize that there is no need to be racked with anxiety that they should hold any particular opinion about you. Marcus Aurelius

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… by realising the opinion of others is simply their projection and has little to do with you

• No, I don’t take it personally. Whatever you think, whatever you feel, I know is your problem and not my problem. It is the way you see the world. It is nothing personal, because you are dealing with yourself, not with me. Others are going to have their own opinion according to their belief system, so nothing they think about me is really about me, but it is about them. Don Miguel Ruiz
• In the same way, whatever you feel and do is just a projection of your own personal dream, a reflection of your own agreements. What you say, what you do, and the opinions you have are according to the agreements you have made — and these opinions have nothing to do with me. Don Miguel Ruiz
• I’ve learned to see that someone’s criticism (or praise) is just a projection of what’s going on with them, so I’m less attached to other people’s opinions of me. Brian Johnson
• But other people’s reactions and opinions are simply other people’s reactions and opinions. They are having their own experience and none of it has anything to do with you – it does not make you wrong, guilty, bad, unworthy, famous, loveable, or important. Don Miguel Ruiz

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Become independent of the opinions of others …

• Self-actualised people are independent of the good opinion of others. Wayne Dyer
• It is very easy in the world to live by the opinion of the world. It is very easy in solitude to be self-centred. But the finished man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• I am totally independent of the good or bad opinion of others. Deepak Chopra
• Be independent of the good opinion of other people. Abraham Maslow

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… by defining yourself from within rather than by external opinion…

• As you live your values, your sense of identity, integrity, control, and inner-directedness will infuse you with both exhilaration and peace. You will define yourself from within, rather than by people’s opinions or by comparisons to others. “Wrong” and “right” will have little to do with being found out. Stephen Covey
• Be noble minded! Our own heart, and not other men’s opinions of us, forms our true honor. Friedrich Schiller
• Our own heart, and not others’ opinions of us, forms our true honor. Friedrich von Schiller

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… by getting in touch with your real Self …

• When we are in touch with our universal Self, we relinquish the need for approval and control. This means that our actions are independent of the opinions of others and detached from expectations. We are motivated by our own powerful instincts and their evolutionary outcome, not because we have any expectations for payback. Deepak Chopra
• To truly find God, truth needs to be found independently from the opinions of others. The truth has to be found in our hearts. A.H. Almaas

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… by having faith in your own opinion …

• If you’re really spiritual, then you should be totally independent of the good and the bad opinions of the world…you should have faith in yourself. Deepak Chopra

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… by listening to your inner voice …

• 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 inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. Steven P. Jobs
• Listen to your own inner voice, not the jumbled opinions of everyone else. Marc and Angel Chernoff
• Don’t let the noise of other’s 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. Steve Jobs

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… by putting your growth ahead of the opinion of others …

• They have become strong enough to be independent of the good opinion of other people, or even of their affection. The honors, the status, the rewards, the popularity, the prestige, and the love they can bestow must have become less important than self- development and inner growth. Abraham Maslow

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… by putting your visions and goals ahead of the opinions of others

• Successful people pay more attention to their visions and goals than to history and the opinions of others. Alan Cohen
• Pursue your goal. Opinions be damned. Stacy Verdick Case

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Freedom from the opinion of others is true freedom

• Real freedom is freedom from the opinions of others. Above all, freedom from your opinions about yourself. Brennan Manning
• Patterning your life around others’ opinions is nothing more than slavery. Lawana Blackwell
• Freedom is not being a slave to the opinion of others
• Breath by breath, let go of fear, expectation, anger, regret, cravings, frustration, fatigue. Let go of the need for approval. Let go of old judgments and opinions. Die to all that and fly free. Lama Surya Das
• Freedom

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Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared to the opinion we have of ourselves

• Public opinion is a weak tyrant, compared with our private opinion – what a man thinks of himself, that is which determines, or rather indicates his fate. Henry David Thoreau

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When we have a high opinion of ourselves, we tend towards pride …

• Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
• Vanity does not refer to the opinion a man entertains of himself, but to that which he wishes others to entertain of him. William Hazlitt
• Pride: A high or inordinate opinion of one’s own dignity, importance, merit, or superiority, whether as cherished in the mind or as displayed in bearing, conduct, etc. Dictionary.com
• None are more unjust in their judgments of others than those who have a high opinion of themselves. C. H. (Charles Haddon) Spurgeon
• If I weren’t too proud, I’d boast of my exaggerated opinion of myself. Bauvard

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… which in high doses can come at a high cost

• Pride, like laudanum and other poisonous medicines, is beneficial in small, though injurious in large quantities. No man who is not pleased with himself, even in a personal sense, can please others. Frederick Saunders
• Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold. Thomas Jefferson
• Pride is an admission of weakness; it secretly fears all competition and dreads all rivals. Fulton John Sheen
• Pride will have a fall. English proverb
• In general, pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes. John Ruskin
• Pride must die in you, or nothing of heaven can live in you. Andrew Murray

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When we have a low opinion of ourselves, we suffer from doubt and low confidence

• Nobody holds a good opinion of a man who holds a low opinion of himself. Anthony Trollope
• Having a low opinion of yourself is not ‘modesty.’ It’s self-destruction. Holding your uniqueness in high regard is not ‘egotism.’ It’s a necessary precondition to happiness and success. Bobbe Sommer

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Maybe the secret lies in letting go of the need to have an any opinion of yourself at all

• Humility does not mean thinking less of yourself than of other people, nor does it mean having a low opinion of your own gifts. It means freedom from thinking about yourself at all.   William Temple
• Even the opinions you have about yourself are not necessarily true; therefore, you don’t need to take whatever you hear in your own mind personally. Don Miguel Ruiz

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Our opinions have little to do with truth and reality

• But opinions, judgments, memories, dreaming about the future—ninety percent of the thoughts spinning around in our heads have no essential reality. Charlotte J. Beck
• Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion. Democritus of Abdera
• Facts or opinions which are to pass through the hands of so many, to be misconceived by folly in one, and ignorance in another, can hardly have much truth left. Jane Austen
• Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth. Marcus Aurelius

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In fact, opinions only serve to distort the view of reality and truth

• Truth is one forever absolute, but opinion is truth filtered through the moods, the blood, the disposition of the spectator. Wendell Phillips
• Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived. Oscar Wilde
• The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice. Arthur Schopenhauer
• Opinion is a flitting thing. But Truth outlasts the Sun.  Emily Dickinson
• You can have no greater or lesser dominion than the one over yourself. The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions. Leonardo da Vinci
• Nothing limits intelligence more than ignorance; nothing fosters ignorance more than one’s own opinions; nothing strengthens opinions more than refusing to look at reality. Sheri S. Tepper
• Many of the “truths” you cling to are simply a result of one point of view—yours. Stephen Covey
• Reality,  Truth

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Our opinions stop us from really being able to see …

• You don’t see anything as it is, but distorted and reduced by mental labels, concepts, judgments, opinions and reactive patterns. Eckhart Tolle
• The more opinions you have, the less you see. Wim Wenders
• There is no man so blind as one who has made up his mind. Brian Herbert & Keven J. Anderson
• Perception

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… for they block pure awareness

• Awareness is our true self; it’s what we are. So we don’t have to try to develop awareness; we simply need to notice how we block awareness with our thoughts, our fantasies, our opinions, and our judgments. We’re either in awareness, which is our natural state, or we’re doing something else. Joko Beck
• Awareness

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Letting go of the constant need to have opinions brings peace

• Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinion at all. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
• Nothing contributes more to a person’s peace of mind than having no opinions at all. C. Lichtenberg
• You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can’t control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone. Marcus Aurelius
• I just realized that I don’t have to have an opinion about everything–what a relief! David R. Hawkins

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Letting go of opinions brings freedom

• Question your stories. Question your assumptions.  Question your opinions. Question your conclusions. Question them all into utter emptiness, stillness and joy.  The keys to freedom are in your hands.  Use them.  Adyashanti
• Breath by breath, let go of fear, expectation, anger, regret, cravings, frustration, fatigue. Let go of the need for approval. Let go of old judgments and opinions. Die to all that and fly free. Lama Surya Das

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Letting go of opinions brings spiritual awakening

• The spiritual aspirant, therefore, is wise to detach from all positionalities and opinions and be willing to surrender the ego’s temporary satisfactions for a higher goal. R. Hawkins
• Awaken to who you really are,  Awakening

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Letting go of opinions opens your eyes to truth

• The great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. When love and hate are both absent, everything becomes clear and undisguised. Make the smallest distinction, however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely far apart. If you wish to see the truth, then hold no opinions for or against anything. To set up what you like against what you dislike is the disease of the mind. When the deep meaning of things is not understood, the mind’s essential peace is disturbed to no avail. Third Zen Patriarch
• Don’t seek the truth. Just cease to cherish opinions. Zen saying
• Do not seek for the truth, only stop having an opinion. Seng Ts’an
• Truth

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Letting go of opinions allows you to see like a child again before opinions took over the mind

• Just imagine becoming the way you used to be as a very young child, before you understood the meaning of any word, before opinions took over your mind. The real you is loving, joyful, and free. The real you is just like a flower, just like the wind, just like the ocean, just like the sun. Don Miguel Ruiz
• Soon the child’s clear eye is clouded over by ideas and opinions. Simple free being becomes encrusted with the burdensome armor of the ego.  Not until years later does an instinct come that a vital sense of mystery has been withdrawn.  The sun glints through the pines, and the heart is pierced in a moment of beauty and strange pain, like a memory of paradise.  After that day. . . we become seekers.  Peter Matthiessen

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Letting go of preconceived opinions helps solve problems

• When you approach a problem, strip yourself of preconceived opinions and prejudice, assemble and learn the facts of the situation, make the decision which seems to you to be the most honest, and then stick to it. Chester Bowles
• Problem solving

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Letting go of opinions lifts you into creativity

• Dance above the surface of the world. Let your thoughts lift you into creativity that is not hampered by opinion. Red Haircrow
• Creativity

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Let go of opinions through the practice of mental stillness …

• Meditation is not the pursuit of an invisible path leading to some imaginal bliss. The meditative mind is seeing, watching, listening, without the word, without comment, without opinion, attentive to the movement of life in all its relationships throughout the day. Jiddu Krishnamurti

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… by learning to listen without thought

• 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
• If we try to listen we find it extraordinarily difficult, because we are always projecting our opinions and ideas, our prejudices, our background, our inclinations, our impulses; when they dominate, we hardly listen at all to what is being said. In that state there is no value at all. One listens and therefore learns, only in a state of attention a state of silence in which this whole background is in abeyance, is quiet; then, it seems to me, it is possible to communicate. Krisnamurti
• Thinking

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Let go of opinions by letting go of the need to constantly stand out and express what you think

• Another aspect of this practice is to refrain from attempting to strengthen the self by showing off, wanting to stand out, be special, make an impression, or demand attention. It may include occasionally refraining from expressing your opinion when everybody is expressing his or hers, and seeing what that feels like. Eckhart Tolle

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Let go of opinion by letting go of the need to be right

• The kind of man who always thinks that he is right, that his opinions, his pronouncements, are the final word, when once exposed shows nothing there. But a wise man has much to learn without a loss of dignity. Sophocles
• Let go of the need to be right

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Let go of opinion by resisting the need to defend your point of view

• Completely desist from defending your point of view. When you have no point to defend, you do not allow the birth of an argument. If you do this consistently — if you stop fighting and resisting — you will fully experience the present, which is a gift. Deepak Chopra
• I let go of my need to convince others of my point of view. When I remain open to all points of view, my dreams and desires will flow with nature’s desires. Deepak Chopra
• Today my awareness will remain established in Defencelessness. I will relinquish the need to defend my point of view. I will feel no need to convince or persuade others to accept my point of view. I will remain open to all points of view. Deepak Chopra

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Let go of opinions by realising opinions are ultimately vanities of the mind

• The mind tends to be expansive and credits itself with ‘worthy’ thoughts and opinions. When carefully examined, one finds that all opinions are worthless. They are all vanities and have no importance or intrinsic merit. Everyone’s mind is loaded with endless opinions, and when seen for what they are, opinions are really only mentations. What is of more importance, however, is that they stem from and reinforce positionalities, and it is these positionalities that bring on endless suffering. To let go of positionalities is to silence opinions, and to silence opinions is to let go of positionalities. David R. Hawkins
• There is nothing in the world so easy as giving an opinion; consequently, in general, there are few things so utterly valueless. Charles William Day

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Realise your feelings offer a deeper truth than your opinions

• The feeling is often the deeper truth, the opinion the more superficial one. Augustus William Hare

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It is not events in our lives but our opinions of them that matter

• Men are disturbed not by things that happen, but by their opinion of the things that happen. Epictetus

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As a leader, consider the opinions of others

• As a leader… I have always endeavored to listen to what each and every person in a discussion had to say before venturing my own opinion. Oftentimes, my own opinion will simply represent a consensus of what I heard in the discussion. I always remember the axiom: a leader is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind. Nelson Mandela
• When we are debating an issue, loyalty means giving me your honest opinion, whether you think I’ll like it or not. Disagreement, at this state, stimulates me. But once a decision is made, the debate ends. From that point on, loyalty means executing the decision as if it were your own. General Colin Powel
• Leadership

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Thoughts on young people and opinions

• The best rules to form a young man are, to talk little, to hear much, to reflect alone upon what has passed in company, to distrust one’s opinions, and value others that deserve it. William Temple, Sr.
• I think kids should have a mentor and a role model, but that they shouldn’t take one person’s opinion to be what we call final assessment or judgment about how life is supposed to be. Sean Paul

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Thoughts on God and opinions

• The proud wish God would agree with them. They are not interested in changing their opinions to agree with God’s. Ezra Taft Benson
• Where did you get the idea you aren’t allowed to petition the universe with prayer? You are part of this universe, Liz. You’re a constituent–you have every entitlement to participate in the actions of the universe, and to let your feelings be known. So, put your opinion out there. Make your case. Believe me–it will at least be taken into consideration. Elizabeth Gilbert
• If God were our one and only desire, we would not be so easily upset when our opinions do not find outside acceptance. Thomas à Kempis
• Don’t allow the opinions of other people to shape your concept of him. Get to know him yourself, and let the goodness of God change you from the inside out. Judah Smith

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The truth usually lies in the medium of opinions – or does it?

• There is a medium in opinions, as well as in pleasures–error usually lies in extremes. Norman Macdonald
• …when two opposite points of view are expressed with equal intensity, the truth does not necessarily lie exactly halfway between them. It is possible for one side to be simply wrong. Richard Dawkins

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More thoughts on public opinion

• The measure of any man’s virtue is what he would do if he had neither the laws nor public opinion, nor even his own prejudices, to control him. William Hazlitt
• Public opinion, though often formed upon a wrong basis, yet generally has a strong underlying sense of justice. Abraham Lincoln
• The public is so in awe of its own opinion that it never dares to form any, but catches up the first idle rumour, lest it should be behindhand in its judgment, and echoes it till it is deafened with the sound of its own voice. William Hazlitt
• Public opinion is the greatest force for good, when it happens to be on our side.
• Public opinion is the pennant on a nation’s mast which shows the politician and the editor how to trim the sails. Austin O’Malley
• The tiniest bits of opinion sown in the minds of children in private life afterwards issue forth to the world and become its public opinion; for nations are gathered out of nurseries. Samuel Smiles
• Public opinion in this country is everything. Abraham Lincoln

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• A flatterer is a man that tells you your opinion and not his own.
• A painting in a museum hears more ridiculous opinions than anything else in the world.  Edmont de Concourt
• Absurdity: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one’s own opinion.  Ambrose Bierce
• At my age getting a second doctor’s opinion is kinda like switching slot machines. Jimmy Carter
• Bigot: One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain. Ambrose Bierce
• Conscience is, in most, an anticipation of the opinion of others. Henry Taylor
• Dictatorship: A place where public opinion can’t even be expressed privately.
• Everyone is entitled to their own incorrect opinion. Brian Vaszily
• Facts are like opinions except they’re true
• Force rules the world, and not opinion; but opinion is that which makes use of force. Blaise Pascal
• Frankly I’m suspicious of anyone who has a strong opinion on a complicated issue.  Scott Adams
• Georgie believed in democracy and he felt that everybody had a right to an opinion; his.  George Burns
• I am not one of those who in expressing opinions confine themselves to facts. Mark Twain
• I don’t like my music but what is my opinion against that of millions of others.  Frederick Loewe
• I find that a duck’s opinion of me is heavily influenced by whether or not I have bread.  Mitch Hedberg
• I have long been of the opinion that if work were such a splendid thing the rich would have kept more of it for themselves.  Bruce Grocott
• I have opinions of my own – strong opinions – but I don’t always agree with them. George H.W. Bush
• I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect. Edward Gibbon
• I told my wife she’s lousy in bed; she went out to get a second opinion.  Rodney Dangerfield
• I try to see things from your point of view but DAMN I just cant get my head that far up my ass!
• I’ve never had a humble opinion. If you’ve got an opinion, why be humble about it? Joan Baez
• If I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you.  Samuel Goldwyn
• If I want your opinion, I’ll ask you to fill out the necessary forms.
• If I weren’t too proud, I’d boast of my exaggerated opinion of myself. Bauvard
• If you don’t like my opinion of you you can always improve.  Ashleigh Brilliant
• If you want me to treat your ideas with more respect, get some better ideas. John Scalzi
• If your dog thinks you’re the greatest person in the world, don’t seek a second opinion. Jim Fiebig
• In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane. Oscar Wilde
• It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them! Friedrich Nietzsche
• Liberal: One who tolerates all beliefs and opinions except those with which he disagrees.
• My opinions may have changed but not the fact that I am right.  Ashleigh Brilliant
• My psychiatrist told me I was crazy and I said I want a second opinion; he said okay you’re ugly too.  Rodney Dangerfield
• No one can have a higher opinion of him than I have; and I think he’s a dirty little beast.  S. Gilbert
• No woman ever falls in love with a man unless she has a better opinion of him than he deserves.  Edgar Watson Howe
• Opinion governs all mankind, like the blind’s leading of the blind. Samuel Butler
• Opinions are like assholes, everybody’s got one!
• 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
• Prejudice is a great time saver. You can form opinions without having to get the facts. B. White
• Radical: Anyone whose opinion differs from ours.
• That film sucked so bad my opinion of it went straight to video.  Denis Leary
• The destiny of any nation at any given time depends on the opinions of its young men under five-and-twenty. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• The fewer the facts the stronger the opinion. Arnold Glasow
• The person with the least expertise has the most opinions.  Gioia’s Theory
• The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.  Mark Twain
• We’re not fighting Carla. We’re merely discussing a little difference of opinion I think Sam is a heartless mindless slack-jawed cretin and he disagrees.   Shelley Long
• Well, my deliberate opinion is – it’s a jolly strange world. Arnold Bennett
• When I want your opinion, I’ll remove the duct tape.
• Yawn: an honest opinion openly expressed.
• You get fifteen Democrats in a room and you get twenty opinions.  Patrick Leahy
• Your opinion is very important to me, please remain on the line until it goes to voicemail.

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