“Considering the temptations under which politicians are placed, of changing their opinions, or rather their professions of opinion, from motives of self interest, the world will not give them credit for motives of honest conviction, unless when the change shall be to their manifest loss and disadvantage.”
Source: The Statesman (1836), Ch. 17. p. 121
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Henry Taylor 33
English playwright and poet 1800–1886Related quotes
1900s, The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses (1900), National Duties
Context: No hard-and-fast rule can be laid down as to where our legislation shall stop in interfering between man and man, between interest and interest. All that can be said is that it is highly undesirable, on the one hand, to weaken individual initiative, and, on the other hand, that in a constantly increasing number of cases we shall find it necessary in the future to shackle cunning as in the past we have shackled force. It is not only highly desirable but necessary that there should be legislation which shall carefully shield the interests of wage-workers, and which shall discriminate in favor of the honest and humane employer by removing the disadvantage under which he stands when compared with unscrupulous competitors who have no conscience and will do right only under fear of punishment. Nor can legislation stop only with what are termed labor questions. The vast individual and corporate fortunes, the vast combinations of capital, which have marked the development of our industrial system create new conditions, and necessitate a change from the old attitude of the state and the nation toward property.
“The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion.”
Source: "Q&A: Mega Man Creator Wants Japan to Admit Failure" https://www.wired.com/2012/04/keiji-inafune-qa/. WIRED. Retrieved 2018-07-15.
“When public opinion changes, it is with the rapidity of thought.”
Letter to Colonel Charles Yancey http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=807&chapter=88152&layout=html&Itemid=27 (6 January 1816) ME 14:384
1810s
on Osama bin Laden's reasons for wanting to kill Americans
Hardball with Chris Matthews, November 16 2004.
2000s
Es ist nicht der Kampf der Meinungen, welcher die Geschichte so gewaltthätig gemacht hat, sondern der Kampf des Glaubens an die Meinungen, das heisst der Ueberzeugungen.
Section IX, "Man Alone with Himself" / excerpt from aphorism 630
Source: Human, All Too Human (1878), Helen Zimmern translation
No. 117 (14 July 1711).
The Spectator (1711–1714)
“Inconsistencies of opinion, arising from changes of circumstances, are often justifiable.”
Speech (July 25 and 27, 1846); reported in Edward Everett, ed., The Works of Daniel Webster (1851), Vol. V, p. 187