Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots.

I do think, however, that there’s a very diverse point of view in the African-American community. There’s a lot of different voices that need to be heard. I don’t claim and pretend to know the thoughts and opinions and ideas of all African-Americans.

My views on everything from welfare to a balanced budget to affirmative action can be traced to what Buddy and Helen Watts taught me as a young boy growing up poor but proud in Eufaula.

Children are very quick observers; very quick in seeing through some kinds of hypocrisy, very quick in finding out what you really think and feel, very quick in adopting all your ways and opinions. You will often discover that, as the father is, so is the son.

When men exercise their reason coolly and freely, on a variety of distinct questions, they inevitably fall into different opinions, on some of them. When they are governed by a common passion, their opinions if they are so to be called, will be the same.

I have ever regarded the freedom of religious opinions and worship as equally belonging to every sect.

A man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them.

Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties or his possessions.

Lord Maccon was built like a brick outhouse, with opinions twice as unmoving and often equally full of crap.

Stay focused on your goals, and don’t get distracted by others’ opinions.

Your value is not determined by others’ opinions, it’s within you.

Men, believing in myths, will always fear something terrible, everlasting punishment as certain or probable . . . Men base all these fears not on mature opinions, but on irrational fancies, that they are more disturbed by fear of the unknown than by facing facts. Peace of mind lies in being delivered from all these fears.

I invited President Trump twice now to come meet my family and my community because he seems to have a lot of opinions about the kind of people we are.

Delusions are often functional. A mother’s opinions about her children’s beauty, intelligence, goodness, et cetera ad nauseam, keep her from drowning them at birth.

When ancient opinions and rules of life are taken away, the loss cannot possibly be estimated. From that moment, we have no compass to govern us, nor can we know distinctly to what port to steer.

A change of opinions is almost unknown in an elderly military man.

Never ask who’s right. Start out by asking what is right. And you find that out by listening to dissenting, disagreeing opinions.

One does not start with facts. One starts with opinions.

What people call impartiality may simply mean indifference, and what people call partiality may simply mean mental activity.

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.

Writing means sharing. It’s part of the human condition to want to share things – thoughts, ideas, opinions.

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.

For I am not so enamoured of my own opinions that I disregard what others may think of them.

A good commander will never express an opinion! A good commander knows!

While I do not think it was so intended, I have always been of the opinion that this turned out to be much the best for me. I had no national experience. What I have ever been able to do has been the result of first learning how to do it. I am not gifted with intuition. I need not only hard work but experience to be ready to solve problems. The Presidents who have gone to Washington without first having held some national office have been at great disadvantage

Most people approve of capital punishment, but most people wouldn’t do the hangman’s job.

This is the inevitable fate of the sentimentalist. All his opinions change into their opposites at the first brush of reality.

The average, vague understanding of being can be permeated by traditional theories and opinions about being in such a way that these theories, as the sources of the prevailing understanding, remain hidden.

We have probably had too good an opinion of human nature in forming our confederation.

There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true.

One of the expedients of party to acquire influence, within particular districts, is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts.

Some of the scientists, I believe, haven’t they been changing their opinion a little bit on global warming? There’s a lot of differing opinions and before we react I think it’s best to have the full accounting, full understanding of what’s taking place.

I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don’t always agree with them.

The membership of our party is necessarily a small portion of the Chinese people. Only if that small portion reflects the opinions of the majority of the people’s, and only if it works for their interests can the relationship between the people and the party be healthy.

I don’t expect everyone to agree with me. I just want them to respect my opinion.

Rap is just somebody getting something off his chest. That’s all it is.

What I know for sure: Often we don’t even realize who we’re meant to be because we’re so busy trying to live out someone else’s ideas. But other people and their opinions hold no power in defining our destiny.

But when you disarm them, you at once offend them by showing that you distrust them, either for cowardice or for want of loyalty, and either of these opinions breeds hatred against you.

Respectable opinion would never consider an assessment of the Reagan Doctrine or earlier exercises in terms of their actual human costs, and could not comprehend that such an assessment—which would yield a monstrous toll if accurately conducted on a global scale—might perhaps be a proper task in the United States. At the same level of integrity, disciplined Soviet intellectuals are horrified over real or alleged American crimes, but perceive their own only as benevolent intent gone awry, or errors of an earlier day, now overcome; the comparison is inexact and unfair, since Soviet intellectuals can plead fear as an excuse for their services to state violence.

What are called opinions “on the left” and “on the right” in the media represent only a limited spectrum of debate, which reflects the range of needs of private power—but there’s essentially nothing beyond those “acceptable” positions. So what the media do, in effect, is to take the set of assumptions which express the basic ideas of the propaganda system, whether about the Cold War or the economic system or the “national interest” and so on, and then present a range of debate within that framework—so the debate only enhances the strength of the assumptions, ingraining them in people’s minds as the entire possible spectrum of opinion that there is.

In physics, opinions don’t matter, only demonstrated experiments. The day the fellow succeeds, if ever, he won’t need anybody else’s opinion.