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The Four Stages of Public Opinion
I (Just after publication): The novelty is absurd
and subversive of Religion and Morality.
The propounder both fool and knave.
II (Twenty years later): The Novelty is absolute Truth
and will yield a full and satisfactory
explanation of things in general -
The propounder a man of sublime genius and perfect virtue.
III (Forty years later): The Novelty won't explain
things in general after all, and therefore is a wretched failure.
The propounder a very ordinary person advertised by a clique.
IV (A century later): The Novelty a mixture of truth and error.
Explains as much as could reasonably be expected.
The propounder worthy of all honor
in spite of his share of human frailties,
as one who has added to the permanent possessions of science.
- Thomas Henry [T. H.] Huxley
The great end of life is not knowledge but action.
- Thomas Henry Huxley
The secret of making dreams come true
can be summarized in four C's.
They are Curiosity, Confidence, Courage, and Constancy;
and the greatest of these is Confidence.
- Walt Disney
I have a dream that my four little children will one day
live in a nation where they will
not be judged by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Thank You,
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The Four Agreements
1.Be impeccable with your word.
2.Don't take anything personally.
3.Don't make assumptions.
4.Always do your best.
- don Miguel Ruiz
Give me six hours to chop down a tree
and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
- Abraham Lincoln
When a man you like switches from what
he said a year ago, or four years ago,
he is a broad-minded person who has courage enough
to change his mind with changing conditions.
When a man you don't like does it,
he is a liar who has broken his promise.
- Franklin Pierce Adams
Every human has four endowments- self awareness, conscience,
independent will and creative imagination.
These give us the ultimate human freedom...
The power to choose, to respond, to change.
- Stephen Covey
How many legs does a dog have
if you call the tail a leg? Four.
Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.
- Abraham Lincoln
There are only four questions of value in life...
What is sacred?
Of what is the spirit made?
What is worth living for,
and what is worth dying for?
The answer to each is the same: only love.
- Johnny Depp as Don Juan in the movie Don Juan De Marco
There are three hundred and sixty-four days
when you might get un-birthday presents,
and only one for birthday presents, you know.
- Lewis Carroll
A best friend is like a four leaf clover,
hard to find and lucky to have.
- Anonymous
There are four stages in a marriage.
First there's the affair,
then the marriage,
then children
and finally the fourth stage,
without which you cannot know a woman, the divorce.
- Norman Mailer
One good reason to only maintain a small circle of friends
is that three out of four murders
are committed by people who know the victim.
- George Carlin
The four most important words in any marriage...
"I'll do the dishes."
- Anonymous
A honeymoon should be like a table:
four bare legs and no drawers.
- Anonymous
Clear? Huh. Why a four-year-old child
could understand this report.
Run out and find me a four-year-old child,
I can't make head or tail of it.
- the Groucho Marx movie Duck Soup
The Master teaches that the way of qigong cannot be hurried.
Wuji refers to the time before the creation -
when everything was formless.
Standing in the wuji position, my feet are parallel
to each other, shoulder-width apart.
My knees are slightly bent,
and the tip of my tongue touches the roof of my mouth.
My arms are held in front of me with my elbows bent
and my palms parallel to each other - about four inches apart.
At first I focus on my breathing, and only my breathing.
Later, I visualize the energy or "Qi" between my palms.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
All truth passes through three stages:
First, it is ridiculed;
Second, it is violently opposed;
Third, it is accepted as self-evident.
- Arthur Schopenhauer
Self-pity in its early stages
is as snug as a feather mattress.
Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable.
- Maya Angelou
Truth stands, even if there be no public support.
It is self-sustained.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths.
- Joseph Campbell
God is, even though the whole world deny him.
Truth stands, even if there be no public support.
It is self-sustained.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
No one ever found wisdom without also being a fool.
Writers, alas, have to be fools in public,
while the rest of the human race can cover its tracks.
- Erica Jong
Imagine for yourself a character,
a model personality whose example you determine to follow,
in private as well as in public.
- Epictetus
For me every ruler is alien that defies public opinion.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
When a man assumes a public trust
he should consider himself a public property.
- Thomas Jefferson
You cannot divorce religious belief and public service.
I've never detected any conflict between
God's will and my political duty.
If you violate one, you violate the other.
- Jimmy Carter
The price of apathy towards public affairs
is to be ruled by evil men.
- Plato
One should respect public opinion insofar
as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison,
but anything that goes beyond this
is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.
- Bertrand Russell
There is no such thing as public opinion.
There is only published opinion.
- Winston Churchill
The time comes upon every public man
when it is best for him to keep his lips closed.
- Abraham Lincoln
Public sentiment is everything.
With public sentiment, nothing can fail.
Without it, nothing can succeed.
- Abraham Lincoln
He who molds the public sentiment...
makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to make.
- Abraham Lincoln
Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.
- H. L. Mencken
A nation which has forgotten the quality of courage
which in the past has been brought to public life
is not as likely to insist upon or regard
that quality in its chosen leaders today -
and in fact we have forgotten.
- John F. Kennedy
We must respect the other fellow's religion,
but only in the sense and to the extent
that we respect his theory that
his wife is beautiful and his children smart.
- H. L. Mencken
I never considered a difference of opinion
in politics, in religion, in philosophy,
as cause for withdrawing from a friend.
- Thomas Jefferson
Your opinion is nothing but your point of view.
- don Miguel Ruiz
The minority is always stronger than the majority,
because the minority is generally formed by those
who really have an opinion.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.
Cleverness is mere opinion, bewilderment is intuition.
- Rumi
If you wish to see the truth,
then hold no opinion for or against.
- Osho
People do not seem to realize that
their opinion of the world
is also a confession of character.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
It is not he who reviles or strikes you who insults you,
but your opinion that these things are insulting.
- Epictetus
There is no truth, only human opinion.
- Anonymous
People seem not to see that
their opinion of the world
is also a confession of character.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Failure does not exist.
Failure is simply someone else's opinion of how
a certain act should have been completed.
Once you believe that no act must be performed
in any specific other-directed way,
then failing becomes impossible.
- Wayne Dyer
Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact.
Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.
- Marcus Aurelius
Value your own opinion more, and others' opinions less.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
If an opinion contrary to your own makes you angry,
that is a sign that you are subconsciously aware
of having no good reason for thinking as you do.
- Bertrand Russell
No written law has ever been more binding
than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.
- Carrie Chapman Catt
Thoughtful people seldom share exactly the same opinion -
the same point-of-view.
The wise ones understand that they know nothing -
for virtually none of our experience is truly factual -
and they graciously honor all other opinions.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Having a personal opinion is great.
Believing that one's personal opinion is absolute truth
leads to most of the world's troubles.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
If anyone is unhappy, remember that
his unhappiness is his own fault...
Nothing else is the cause of anxiety or loss of tranquility
except our own opinion.
- Epictetus
Hardly a man in the world has an opinion
upon morals, political, or religion
which he got otherwise than
through his associations and sympathies.
- Mark Twain
In all matters of opinion,
our adversaries are insane.
- Oscar Wilde
Too often we... enjoy the comfort of opinion
without the discomfort of thought.
- John F. Kennedy
A friend or co-worker shares a political,
religious, economic, or social opinion
that is opposite to yours -
does that drive a wedge between your hearts?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Truth always rests with the minority,
and the minority is always stronger than the majority,
because the minority is generally formed by those
who really have an opinion,
while the strength of a majority is illusory,
formed by the gangs who have no opinion -
and who, therefore, in the next instant
(when it is evident that the minority is the stronger)
assume its opinion... while truth again reverts to a new minority.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Each of us is burdened by an unlimited number of
expectations (demands) that we hold for the actions of others.
We "know" that there is a right way to do things,
and are often outraged when our expectations are not met.
Usually, we are unaware that we merely
have a strong opinion and point-of-view,
and are sure that we know how everything is supposed to be.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The good opinion of mankind,
like the lever of Archimedes,
with the given fulcrum, moves the world.
- Thomas Jefferson
The two powers which in my opinion constitute a wise man
are those of bearing and forbearing.
- Epictetus
People who want to share their religious views with you
almost never want you to share yours with them.
- Dave Barry
People will, in a great degree,
and not without reason,
form their opinion of you upon
that which they have of your friends;
and there is a Spanish proverb
which says very justly,
"Tell me whom you live with,
and I will tell you who you are.
- Lord Chesterfield
A difference of opinion is what makes horse racing and missionaries.
- Will Rogers
Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion.
The several sects perform the office of a Censor -
over each other.
- Thomas Jefferson
Fix reason firmly in her seat,
and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion.
Question with boldness even the existence of a God;
because, if there be one,
he must more approve of the homage of reason,
than that of blindfolded fear.
- Thomas Jefferson
Everyone has an opinion on many subjects
and is ready to share those opinions -
labeling them as "truth."
Sometimes it is relatively easy
to filter out these opinions.
Upon hearing an ad for the latest
weight-loss powder on late-night TV,
our skepticism leaps to our defense.
However, if we have heard the same opinion for years
from our parents, friends,
government officials, or religious leaders,
we are more likely to believe without questioning
than to raise our filter of skepticism
and ask the hard questions.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
No one can have a higher opinion of you than I have,
and I think you're a slimy, contemptible sewer rat!
- the movie The Great Mouse Detective
Liar is a strong word, but we are all liars.
Not in the sense of intentionally speaking untruths,
but in the sense of carrying so much historical
and emotional baggage that none of us is believable.
To lie means to speak an untruth,
and virtually everything that comes out of our mouth
is an untruth - an opinion, an assumption,
a point-of-view based on our past.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Errors of opinion may be tolerated
where reason is left free to combat it.
- Thomas Jefferson
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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
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