“Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist
Source: Walden and Other Writings
Section IX, "Man Alone with Himself" / aphorism 571
Human, All Too Human (1878), Helen Zimmern translation
“Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist
Source: Walden and Other Writings
“Our own heart, and not other men's opinions, forms our true honor.”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher
James Mill (1773–1836) Scottish historian, economist, political theorist and philosopher
The Westminster Review, vol. 6 (1826), p. 13
Context: This habit of forming opinions, and acting upon them without evidence, is one of the most immoral habits of the mind.... As our opinions are the fathers of our actions, to be indifferent about the evidence of our opinions is to be indifferent about the consequences of our actions. But the consequences of our actions are the good and evil of our fellow-creatures. The habit of the neglect of evidence, therefore, is the habit of disregarding the good and evil of our fellow-creatures.
Karl Popper (1902–1994) Austrian-British philosopher of science
"The Importance of Critical Discussion" in On the Barricades: Religion and Free Inquiry in Conflict (1989) by Robert Basil
Context: There is an almost universal tendency, perhaps an inborn tendency, to suspect the good faith of a man who holds opinions that differ from our own opinions. … It obviously endangers the freedom and the objectivity of our discussion if we attack a person instead of attacking an opinion or, more precisely, a theory.
Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist
TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Trick of the Mind (2004–2006)