“Some of the sharpest men in argument are notoriously unsound in judgment.”
The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)
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Oliver Wendell Holmes 135
Poet, essayist, physician 1809–1894Related quotes

contempt prior to examination.
A View of the Evidences of Christianity (1794).
As quoted or paraphrased in Anglo-Israel or, The British Nation: The Lost Tribes of Israel (1879) by Rev. William H. Poole.
A similar statement apparently derived from this version has become widely attributed to Herbert Spencer, but there are no records of Spencer ever saying or writing it, the first known attributions to him occurring in 1922 as the epigraph to Le Roy Campbell's The True Function of Relaxation in Piano Playing: A Treatise on the Psycho-Physical Aspect of Piano Playing, With Exercises for Acquiring Relaxation: https://books.google.com/books?id=gjMuAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false "There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all argument and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance! That principle is condemnation before investigation".
Variant: There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all argument, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. This principle is, contempt prior to examination.

Fab. LXV: Of the Sun and Wind, Moral
The Fables of Aesop (2nd ed. 1668)

“Even rulers, notoriously the slowest of men to change, realized that something had to be done.”
Source: The 10th Victim (1965), Chapter 3 (p. 30)

The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. Verulam Viscount St. Albans (1625), Of Discourse

Introductory Remarks
Thoughts on African Colonization (1832)
Context: Little boldness is needed to assail the opinions and practices of notoriously wicked men; but to rebuke great and good men for their conduct, and to impeach their discernment, is the highest effort of moral courage. The great mass of mankind shun the labor and responsibility of forming opinions for themselves. The question is not — what is true? but — what is popular? Not — what does God say? but — what says the public? Not — what is my opinion? but — what do others believe?

“Some to the fascination of a name
Surrender judgment hoodwink'd.”
The Task, book vi. Winter Walk at Noon, line 101.
The Task (1785), Book VI, Winter Walk at Noon

“Here beyond men's judgments all covenants were brittle.”
Source: Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West

“Ordinarily men exercise their memory much more than their judgment.”
Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)