“It used to be, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. But that's not the case anymore. Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything. It's certainty.”

AV Club interview http://www.avclub.com/article/stephen-colbert-13970, (25 January 2006)
Context: Truthiness is tearing apart our country, and I don't mean the argument over who came up with the word. I don't know whether it's a new thing, but it's certainly a current thing, in that it doesn't seem to matter what facts are. It used to be, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. But that's not the case anymore. Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything. It's certainty. People love the president because he's certain of his choices as a leader, even if the facts that back him up don't seem to exist. It's the fact that he's certain that is very appealing to a certain section of the country. I really feel a dichotomy in the American populace. What is important? What you want to be true, or what is true?

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Stephen Colbert 131
American political satirist, writer, comedian, television h… 1964

Related quotes

Daniel Patrick Moynihan photo

“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”

Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927–2003) American politician

Quoted in Robert Sobel's review of Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies edited by Mark C. Carnes.
Quoted in Timothy J. Penny, http://www.nationalreview.com/article/207925/facts-are-facts-timothy-j-penny, National Review September 4, 2003.
Ellen Hume, Tabloids, Talk Radio and the Future of News, part 4 http://www.ellenhume.com/articles/tabloids4.html ( TOC http://www.ellenhume.com/articles/tabloids_contents.html), 1995 cites this as something Moynihan said to a "1994 electoral opponent on WNBC in New York".
However, proceedings http://web.archive.org/web/20141031220947/http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/pdfs/96id_protection.pdf of a Senate Intelligence Committee in 1980 attribute the identical quote to James R. Schlesinger (at p. 110), possibly made during the course of 1973 Congressional testimony.
Also see Bernard Baruch, who said "Every man has a right to his own opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts." in the January 6, 1950 issue of the Deming (New Mexico) Headlight
See also this Barry Popik blog http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/everyone_is_entitled_to_his_own_opinion_but_not_his_own_facts for some etymological research into this quote and its variants.
Attributed
Variant: Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts.
Variant: You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts.
Variant: You’re entitled to your own opinions. You’re not entitled to your own facts.

John McCain photo

“Each side should make its own case, but do so without making up its own facts.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

On claims of waterboarding as being impedimental in as quoted in "John McCain to Bush apologists: Stop lying about Bin Laden and torture" by Greg Sar in The Washington Post (12 May 2011) http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/john-mccain-to-bush-apologists-stop-lying-about-bin-laden-and-torture/2011/03/03/AF10AnzG_blog.html - YouTube video of McCaine's speech http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3I94Yb4KUic
2010s, 2011
Context: We did not learn Abu Ahmed’s real name or alias as a result of waterboarding or any "enhanced interrogation technique" used on a detainee in U. S. custody. None of the three detainees who were waterboarded provided Abu Ahmed’s real name, his whereabouts, or an accurate description of his role in Al-Qaeda. … In fact, not only did the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed not provide us with key leads on bin Laden’s courier, Abu Ahmed; it actually produced false and misleading information. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed specifically told his interrogators that Abu Ahmed had moved to Peshawar, got married, and ceased his role as an Al-Qaeda facilitator — which was not true, as we now know. … It was not torture or cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of detainees that got us the major leads that ultimately enabled our intelligence community to find Osama bin Laden. … we are again engaged in this important debate, with much at stake for America’s security and reputation. Each side should make its own case, but do so without making up its own facts.

Madonna photo

“Listen, everyone is entitled to my opinion.”

Madonna (1958) American singer, songwriter, and actress

http://www.theinsider.com/news/1130430_Madonna_50_Years_Of_Wit_And_Wisdom.

Mitt Romney photo

“Mr. President, you're entitled as a president to your own airplane, and to your own house, but not to your own facts. I'm not going to cut education funding. I don't have any plan to cut education funding.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

Presidential debate, , * 2012-10-03
2012 presidential debate: President Obama and Mitt Romney’s remarks in Denver on Oct. 3
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/2012-presidential-debate-president-obama-and-mitt-romneys-remarks-in-denver-on-oct-3-running-transcript/2012/10/03/24d6eb6e-0d91-11e2-bd1a-b868e65d57eb_story_4.html
2012-10-04, viewable at [2012-10-03, Special Programming : Mitt Romney zingers at first presidential debate, CNN, YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PvpBLQXEJg, 2012-10-04]
in response to President Obama's assertion, "His running mate, Congressman Ryan, put forward a budget... it wasn't very detailed (this seems to be a trend), but what it did do, if you extrapolated how much money we're talking about, you'd look at cutting the education budget up to 20%."
possibly paraphrasing "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.", attributed to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan
2012

H.L. Mencken photo

“There is, in fact, nothing about religious opinions that entitles them to any more respect than other opinions get. On the contrary, they tend to be noticeably silly.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

The American Mercury (March, 1930); first printed, in part, in the Baltimore Evening Sun (9 December 1929)
1920s
Context: The most curious social convention of the great age in which we live is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected. Its evil effects must be plain enough to everyone. All it accomplishes is (a) to throw a veil of sanctity about ideas that violate every intellectual decency, and (b) to make every theologian a sort of chartered libertine. No doubt it is mainly to blame for the appalling slowness with which really sound notions make their way in the world. The minute a new one is launched, in whatever field, some imbecile of a theologian is certain to fall upon it, seeking to put it down. The most effective way to defend it, of course, would be to fall upon the theologian, for the only really workable defense, in polemics as in war, is a vigorous offensive. But the convention that I have mentioned frowns upon that device as indecent, and so theologians continue their assault upon sense without much resistance, and the enlightenment is unpleasantly delayed.
There is, in fact, nothing about religious opinions that entitles them to any more respect than other opinions get. On the contrary, they tend to be noticeably silly. If you doubt it, then ask any pious fellow of your acquaintance to put what he believes into the form of an affidavit, and see how it reads…. “I, John Doe, being duly sworn, do say that I believe that, at death, I shall turn into a vertebrate without substance, having neither weight, extent nor mass, but with all the intellectual powers and bodily sensations of an ordinary mammal;... and that, for the high crime and misdemeanor of having kissed my sister-in-law behind the door, with evil intent, I shall be boiled in molten sulphur for one billion calendar years.” Or, “I, Mary Roe, having the fear of Hell before me, do solemnly affirm and declare that I believe it was right, just, lawful and decent for the Lord God Jehovah, seeing certain little children of Beth-el laugh at Elisha’s bald head, to send a she-bear from the wood, and to instruct, incite, induce and command it to tear forty-two of them to pieces.” Or, “I, the Right Rev. _____ _________, Bishop of _________, D. D., LL. D., do honestly, faithfully and on my honor as a man and a priest, declare that I believe that Jonah swallowed the whale,” or vice versa, as the case may be. No, there is nothing notably dignified about religious ideas. They run, rather, to a peculiarly puerile and tedious kind of nonsense. At their best, they are borrowed from metaphysicians, which is to say, from men who devote their lives to proving that twice two is not always or necessarily four. At their worst, they smell of spiritualism and fortune telling. Nor is there any visible virtue in the men who merchant them professionally. Few theologians know anything that is worth knowing, even about theology, and not many of them are honest. One may forgive a Communist or a Single Taxer on the ground that there is something the matter with his ductless glands, and that a Winter in the south of France would relieve him. But the average theologian is a hearty, red-faced, well-fed fellow with no discernible excuse in pathology. He disseminates his blather, not innocently, like a philosopher, but maliciously, like a politician. In a well-organized world he would be on the stone-pile. But in the world as it exists we are asked to listen to him, not only politely, but even reverently, and with our mouths open.

Walter Bagehot photo

“Maternity," it has been said, "is a matter of fact, paternity is a matter of opinion.”

Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) British journalist, businessman, and essayist

Ch. 4, Nation Making http://books.google.com/books?id=1ANBAQAAMAAJ&q=%22Maternity+it+has+been+said+is+a+matter+of+fact+paternity+is+a+matter+of+opinion%22&pg=PA122#v=onepage
Physics and Politics https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4350 (1869)

Bernard Baruch photo

“Every man has a right to his own opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts.”

Bernard Baruch (1870–1965) American businessman

Deming Headlight (New Mexico), 6 January 1950, as cited in the Yale Book of Modern Proverbs and at There Are Opinions, And Then There Are Facts; Freakonomics blog post by Fred R. Shapiro http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/08/18/there-are-opinions-and-then-there-are-facts/ (18 August 2011)

David Hume photo

“Stand aloof from your own opinions; they seek to lure you with an illusive certainty.”

Henry S. Haskins (1875–1957)

Source: Meditations in Wall Street (1940), p. 111

Marcus Aurelius photo

“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”

Misattributed
Source: Cited as being from The Meditations. This quote does not exist there; although there are several other statements about everything being an opinion, none of these are connected to a sentence about perspectives.

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