I Have My Own Opinions Quotes & Sayings

If you must tell me your opinions, tell me what you believe in. I have plenty of doubts of my own. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I have often expressed my sentiments, that every man, conducting himself as a good citizen, and being accountable to God alone for his religious opinions, ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience. — George Washington

I do have strong convictions and political opinions, but I don't think it's necessary to imbue my photographic work with them. I use photography as a vessel for visual material to flow through, to encourage conversation with the viewer. I try to present a catalyst and invite viewers to tell their own stories. — Michael Kenna

With no plan of escape in sight, I've been resigned to the life of a cosseted young lady of London society as Grandmama and I pay calls. We drink tea that is too weak and never hot enough for my liking. the ladies pass the time with gossip and hearsay. This is what they have in place of freedom - time and gossip. Their lives are small and careful. I do not wish to live this way. I should like to make my mark. To venture opinions that may not be polite or ever correct but are mine nonetheless. If I am to be hanged for anything, I should like to feel that I go to the fallows on my own strength. — Libba Bray

In my work I now have the comfortable feeling that I am so to speak on my own ground and territory and almost certainly not competing in an anxious race and that I shall not suddenly read in the literature that someone else had done it all long ago. It is really at this point that the pleasure of research begins, when one is, so to speak, alone with nature and no longer worries about human opinions, views and demands. To put it in a way that is more learned than clear: the philological aspect drops out and only the philosophical remains. — Heinrich Hertz

Not long ago, having expressed some disagreements in print with an old comrade of long standing, I was sent a response that he had published in an obscure newspaper. This riposte referred to my opinions as 'racist.' I would obviously scorn to deny such an allegation on my own behalf. I would, rather, prefer to repudiate it on behalf of my former friend. He had known me for many years and cooperated with me on numerous projects, and I am quite confident that he would never have as a collaborator anyone he suspected of racial prejudice. But it does remind me, and not for the first time, that quarrels on the left have a tendency to become miniature treason trials, replete with all kinds of denunciation. There's a general tendency - not by any means confined to radicals but in some way specially associated with them - to believe that once the lowest motive for a dissenting position has been found, it must in some way be the real one. — Christopher Hitchens

The Lord of the Rings has been read by many people since it finally appeared in print; and I should like to say something here with reference to the many opinions or guesses that I have received or have read concerning the motives and meaning of the tale. The prime motive was the desire of a tale-teller to try his hand at a really long story that would hold the attention of readers, amuse them, delight them, and at times maybe excite them or deeply move them. As a guide I had only my own feelings for what is appealing or moving, and for many the guide was inevitably often at fault. Some — J.R.R. Tolkien

You mean to frighten me, Mr. Darcy, by coming in all this state to hear me? I will not be alarmed though your sister does play so well. There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me."
"I shall not say you are mistaken," he replied, "because you could not really believe me to entertain any design of alarming you; and I have had the pleasure of your acquaintance long enough to know that you find great enjoyment in occasionally professing opinions which in fact are not your own. — Jane Austen

I was stunned. I was, and I knew it, an ordinary person who long after he was grown retained the childhood assumption that the people who largely control our lives are somehow better informed than, and have judgment superior to, the rest of us; that they are more intelligent. Not until Vietnam did I finally realize that some of the most important decisions of all time can be made by men knowing really no more than, and who are not more intelligent than, most of the rest of us. That it was even possible that my own opinions and judgment could be as good as and maybe better than a politician's who made a decision of profound consequence. — Jack Finney

If people love what I do, that's fantastic. And there's always going to be people who don't, and if I focus on that, then it'll destroy me. I have to just worry about my own opinion and the opinions of the people I'm working with and people who are close to me. Otherwise, it'll drive me crazy. — Emily Browning

I have opinions of my own - strong opinions - but I don't always agree with them. — George H. W. Bush

The messages you received from your family or your childhood experiences may have caused you to believe that assertiveness is unacceptable or even dangerous. Practice saying the following: I have the right to be treated with respect by others. I have the right to express my feelings and opinions. I have the right to say no without feeling guilty. I have the right to ask for what I want. I have the right to make my own mistakes. I have the right to pursue happiness. — Beverly Engel

I have grown more forgiving. I accept that not everything is for me. I'm not as in love with my own opinions as I used to be. And anger is not something that comes to me as quickly as it once did. — Ira Kaplan

People do stop me and talk to me about something they saw that they loved. It is very satisfying, but I have my own opinions. — Raquel Welch

Katie is like my calendar, watching her grow
and change. She is growing up so fast, learning to have opinions of her own,
learning that I don't have the answers to everything. And the moment a child
begins to understand that, you know you're in trouble. — Cecelia Ahern

If by the liberty of the press were understood merely the liberty of discussing the propriety of public measures and political opinions, let us have as much of it as you please: But if it means the liberty of affronting, calumniating and defaming one another, I, for my part, own myself willing to part with my share of it, whenever our legislators shall please so to alter the law and shall chearfully consent to exchange my liberty of abusing others for the privilege of not being abused myself. — Benjamin Franklin

Racism, hate, and bigotry are EVIL and WICKED no matter how you try to rationalize it. I couldn't imagine living my life with this crap in my heart. I love building new relationships and I enjoy learning about different cultures! If people would change their thinking and open up their hearts, they'd be amazed at the beautiful relationships that they could have. And, for the record, I couldn't imagine ALL of my friends being black. There are too many amazing people from different backgrounds that I still have yet to meet. NO WAY would I limit my relationships based on race, absolutely not! I am free to like and love who I want to and I won't allow anybody to persuade me with their opinions. I have my own mind! I'm my own person! I refuse to dislike and/or hate another race 'just because!' I am Stephanie Lahart: BOLD. BRAVE. STRONG. — Stephanie Lahart

I was pulled this way and that for longer than I can remember. And my problem was that I always tried to go in everyone's way but my own. I have also been called one thing and then another while no one really wished to hear what I called myself. So after years of trying to adopt the opinions of others I finally rebelled. I am an invisible man. — Ralph Ellison

I'm so lucky to have been raised the way I have, because my parents believed that everyone had the right to their own feelings, opinions, and existence; as long as they weren't harming others, you had to defend those rights. — George Clooney

I listen with the air of an eager disciple as he propounds things that I have thought ever since I began my studies. Now he is glancing into books that I have read and hidden for my own safety, and he tells me the things that strike him as if they are a great novelty and I should learn them from him. Little Lady Jane Grey knows these opinions, Princess Elizabeth has read them; I taught them both myself. But now I sit beside the king and exclaim when he describes the blindingly obvious, I admire his discovery of the widely known, and I remark on his perception. — Philippa Gregory

Myself
a prince by fortune of my birth,
Near to the king in blood, and near in love
Till you did make him misinterpret me
Have stooped my neck under your injuries
And sighed my English breath in foreign clouds,
Eating the bitter bread of banishment,
Whilst you have fed upon my signories,
Disparked my parks and felled my forest woods,
From my own windows torn my household coat,
Rased out my imprese, leaving me no sign,
Save men's opinions and my living blood,
To show the world I am a gentleman. — William Shakespeare

Second: them poor things well out o' this, and never no more will I interfere with Mrs. Cruncher's flopping, never no more!"
"Whatever housekeeping arrangement that may be," said Miss Pross, striving to dry her eyes and compose herself, "I have no doubt it is best that Mrs. Cruncher should have it entirely under her own superintendence. - O my poor darlings!"
"I go so far as to say, miss, moreover," proceeded Mr. Cruncher, with a most alarming tendency to hold forth as from a pulpit - "and let my words be took down and took to Mrs. Cruncher through yourself - that wot my opinions respectin' flopping has undergone a change, and that wot I only hope with all my heart as Mrs. Cruncher may be a flopping at the present time."
"There, there, there! I hope she is, my dear man," cried the distracted Miss Pross, "and I hope she finds it answering her expectations. — Charles Dickens

I have never belonged wholeheartedly to country or State, to my circle of friends or even to my own family ... Such isolation is sometimes bitter, but I do not regret being cut off from the understanding and sympathy of other men. I lose something by it,to be sure, but I am compensated for it in being rendered independent of the customs, opinions and prejudices of others, and am not tempted to rest my peace of mind upon such shifting foundations. — Albert Einstein

That's my personal view I would say most in my caucus agree with that but there are some who don't and I've always said that on these kinds of moral issues, people have the right to their own opinions. — Stephen Harper

I wish I had been less keen to inject my own opinions, but I was a teenager and your teenage self is generally an idiot compared to the adult you. That's the way it should be. If it's the other way around, you have a problem. — Emma Forrest

I have to just worry about my own opinion and the opinions of the people I'm working with and people who are close to me. — Emily Browning

[People] ask themselves, what is suitable for my position? What is usually done by persons of my station and percuniary circumstances? Or (worse still) what is usually done by persons of a station and circumstances superior to mine? I do not mean that they choose what is customary in preference to what suits their own inclinations. It does not occur to them to have any inclination, except for what is customary. Thus the mind itself is bowed to the yoke: even in what people do for pleasure, conformity is the first thing thought of; they like in crowds; they exercise choice only among things that are commonly done: peculiarity of taste, eccentricity of conduct, are shunned equally with crimes: until by dint of not following their own nature they have no nature to follow: their human capacities are withered and starved: they become incapable of any strong wishes or native pleasures, and are generally without either opinions or feelings of home growth, or properly their own. — John Stuart Mill

I thought my heart was pure. We do like to have such good opinions of our own motives when we're about to do something harmful, to someone else. — Margaret Atwood

What is clear to me today is that I must ignore the opinions and advice of others when they interfere with my own inner knowing. It is enough for me to know that I have a song, and by God, I intend to sing it. — Wayne W. Dyer

As a guide I had only my own feelings for what is appealing or moving, and for many the guide was inevitably often at fault. Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible; and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer. But — J.R.R. Tolkien

Chinese were bornwith an accumulated wisdom, a natural sophistication, an intelligent naivete, and unless they were transplanted too young, these qualities ripened in them ... If ever I am homesick for China, now that I am home in my own country, it is when I discover here no philosophy. Our people have opinions and creeds and prejudices and ideas but as yet no philosophy. — Pearl S. Buck

I don't know the world, nor yet the people in it; I have been too solitary - I am too young to trust my own opinions. — Joseph Conrad

My job is not to worry about what everyone else thinks about me but to discover what I think. If I actually want to know what someone else thinks, my job is then to ask that person. More often than not, however, it isn't important to know. It's okay if people are mad at me, and it's okay if people think I'm a complete idiot - as long as I'm doing my best. Just because certain people might have judgments about me, it does not mean they have authority over me. To truly form my own life, I had to ask questions like 'What are my needs? And 'What are my thoughts?' I had to acknowledge both my strengths and my weaknesses. I had to form my own opinions based on my reality instead of someone else's. — Jenni Schaefer

I should have mentioned before, that, in the autumn of the preceding year, I had form'd most of my ingenious acquaintance into a club of mutual improvement, which we called the JUNTO; we met on Friday evenings. The rules that I drew up required that every member, in his turn, should produce one or more queries on any point of Morals, Politics, or Natural Philosophy, to be discuss'd by the company; and once in three months produce and read an essay of his own writing, on any subject he pleased. Our debates were to be under the direction of a president, and to be conducted in the sincere spirit of inquiry after truth, without fondness for dispute, or desire of victory; and, to prevent warmth, all expressions of positiveness in opinions, or direct contradiction, were after some time made contraband, and prohibited under small pecuniary penalties. — Benjamin Franklin

I have my own opinions, but my songs don't share them. — Shania Twain

The ladies pass the timee with gossip and hearsay. This is what they have in place of freedom- gime and gossip. Their lives are small and careful. I do not wish to live this way. I should like to make my mark. To venture opinions that may not be polite or even correct but are mine nonetheless. If I am to be hanged for anything, I should like to feel that I go to the gallows on my own strength. — Libba Bray

I share no man's opinions; I have my own. — Ivan Turgenev

The criticism does not hurt because I have always been my own worst critic. I wouldn't say I don't respect other people's opinions, but my opinion is the most important. — Tony McCoy

NORA: Yes; it is just so, Torvald. While I was still at home with father, he used to tell me all his views, and so of course I held the same views; if at any time I had a different view I concealed it, because he would not have liked people with opinions of their own. He used to call me his little doll, and play with me, as I in my turn used to play with my dolls. Then I came to live in your house. — Henrik Ibsen

I cannot conceive why people will always mix up my own character and opinions with those of the imaginary beings which, as a poet, I have the right and liberty to draw. — George Gordon Byron

In the old days ... it was a basic, cardinal fact that producers didn't have opinions. When I was producing natural history programmes, I didn't use them as vehicles for my own opinion. They were factual programmes. — David Attenborough

In my own experience, I have been amazed to see how unrealistic are the bases for political opinion in general. Only rarely have I found a person who has chosen any particular political party - democratic or totalitarian - through study and comparison of principles. — Joost Meerloo

Although I'm only fourteen, I know quite well what I want, I know who is right and who is wrong. I have my opinions, my own ideas and principles, and although it may sound pretty mad from an adolescent, I feel more of a person than a child, I feel quite indepedent of anyone. — Anne Frank

Feed me. If you don't, all the way to Rosalinda's, I'm explaining the entirety of the history of Angel, the vampire with a soul given to him by gypsies as punishment for him killing one of their own. This history will range from Buffy, The Vampire Slayer through to Angel, his own TV show. I'll also add my opinions on why they should never have cancelled Angel. I'll tell you now, this is multi-part and doesn't all have to do with the fact that David Boreanaz is hot. And, if you delay, I might even have time to get into why I think Joss Whedon should be recommended for sainthood. — Kristen Ashley

I think as a woman, the more you embrace who you are, and your own opinions, and how you feel, and the body you have been given- I think the more confident you are and the more beautiful you look. I definitely feel that my confidence has grown as I've entered my 30s. I have my own opinion - it's very valid - and that shows on the outside as well. — Cat Deeley

I've always wondered if people who block each other from expressing their opinions do so because they have so little confidence in their own. To me, encountering an opposing point of view is a chance to gain a deeper understanding of the issues at stake and develop my own point of view. But the first thing you've got to do is you've got to let people speak and you've got to listen. And that's what the first amendment is all about. That's what really distinguishes this country from others. — Michael Bloomberg

I definitely care about what's happening in our country. I grew up in a family that was very liberal and had very strong opinions about liberal ideas. I was around those thoughts and had conversations about those things and did the best I could to absorb what was happening around me and have my own opinion about it. — Robert Coppola Schwartzman