Heretics and Heresies (1874)
Context: Whoever has an opinion of his own, and honestly expresses it, will be guilty of heresy. Heresy is what the minority believe; it is the name given by the powerful to the doctrine of the weak.
Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden (1714–1794) English lawyer, judge and Whig politician
Speech in the House of Lords, on the taxation of Americans by the British parliament, 7 March 1766; as reported in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (1990), 2nd edn., p. 60.
Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer
Source: 1960s, Julian (1964), Chapter 1, Priscus to Libanius, Athens March 380
Angelo Vulpini (2003) Venezuelan recording artist
Source: Posted on @angelovulpini, Instagram (June 3, 2019)
“He who has an opinion of his own, but depends upon the opinion and taste of others, is a slave.”
Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724–1803) German poet, writer and linguist
As quoted in Day's Collacon: an Encyclopaedia of Prose Quotations (1884), p. 639
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
Letter to Morris Raphael Cohen, professor emeritus of philosophy at the College of the City of New York, defending the appointment of Bertrand Russell to a teaching position (19 March 1940).
1940s
Variant: Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence and fulfills the duty to express the results of his thoughts in clear form.
“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)
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
Address to the Chicago Decalogue Society (20 February 1954)
1950s
James Boswell (1740–1795) Scottish lawyer, diarist and author
15 August 1773
The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1785)
