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When we are young we generally estimate an opinion by the size of the
person that holds it, but later we find that is an uncertain rule, for
we realize that there are times when a hornet's opinion disturbs us more
than an emperor's. If you cannot have a whale's good opinion except at some sacrifice of
principle or personal dignity, it is better to try to live without it.
That is my idea about whales. |
 AI image created by R. Kent Rasmussen |
| We are discreet sheep; we wait to see how
the drove is going, and then go with the drove. We have two opinions: one
private, which we are afraid to express; and another one--the one we use--which
we force ourselves to wear to please Mrs. Grundy, until habit makes us comfortable
in it, and the custom of defending it presently makes us love it, adore
it, and forget how pitifully we came by it. Look at it in politics. - Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1 (2010) |
 AI image created by R. Kent Rasmussen |
| I think there is no sense in forming an
opinion when there is no evidence to form it on. If you build a person without
any bones in him he may look fair enough to the eye, but he will be limber
and cannot stand up; and I consider that evidence is the bones of an opinion. - Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc |
 AI image created by Barbara Schmidt |
| Oh, dear, we are all like that. Each of us knows it all, and knows he
knows it all--the rest, to a man, are fools and deluded. One man knows there
is a hell, the next one knows there isn't; one man knows high tariff is
right, the next man knows it isn't; one man knows monarchy is best, the
next one knows it isn't; one age knows there are witches, the next one knows
there aren't; one sect knows its religion is the only true one, there are
sixty-four thousand five hundred million sects that know it isn't so. There
is not a mind present among this multitude of verdict-deliverers that is
the superior of the minds that persuade and represent the rest of the divisions
of the multitude. Yet this sarcastic fact does not humble the arrogance
nor diminish the know-it-all bulk of a single verdict-maker of the lot,
by so much as a shade. Mind is plainly an ass, but it will be many ages
before it finds it out, no doubt. Why do we respect the opinions of any
man or any microbe that ever lived? I swear [I] don't know. Why do I respect
my own? Well--that is different. - "Three Thousand Years among the Microbes" I am persuaded that a coldly-thought-out and independent verdict upon
a fashion in clothes, or manners, or literature, or politics, or religion,
or any other matter that is projected into the field of our notice and
interest, is a most rare thing--if it has indeed ever existed. I am not one of those who in expressing opinions confine themselves to
facts. |
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It were not best that we should all think
alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horse-races. - "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" Sane and intelligent human beings are like all other human beings, and carefully and cautiously and diligently conceal their private real opinions from the world and give out fictitious ones in their stead for general consumption. - Mark Twain In Eruption We keep half of what we think hidden away on our inside and only deliver ourselves of that remnant of it which is proper for general consumption. - Mark Twain in Eruption |
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All Democrats are insane, but not one of them knows it; none but the
Republicans and Mugwumps know it. All the Republicans are insane, but
only the Democrats and Mugwumps can perceive it. The rule is perfect:
in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane. I, like all other human beings, expose to the world only my trimmed and
perfumed and carefully barbered public opinions and conceal carefully,
cautiously, wisely, my private ones. We are nothing but echoes. We have no thoughts of our own, no opinions
of our own, we are but a compost heap made up of the decayed heredities,
moral and physical. |
 Illustration from WASHINGTON TIMES, January 12, 1904 |
| We all break over the rule two or three times in our lives and fire a
disagreeable and unpopular private opinion of ours into print, but we never
do it when we can help it, we never do it except when the desire to do it
is too strong for us and overrides and conquers our cold, calm, wise judgment. - Mark Twain in Eruption Our opinions do not really blossom into fruition until we have expressed them to someone else. - quoted in Mark Twain and I, Opie Read, 1940 Is a person's public and private opinion the same? It is thought there have been instances. - More Maxims of Mark, Merle Johnson, 1927 Opinions based upon theory, superstition, and ignorance are not very precious. - Letter to Joseph H. Twitchell, 27 January 1900 Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul in this world--and never will. - "Consistency" speech, 1884 |
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